Re: OpenVMS Seminar in Toronto (2005-02-24) a few points

From: Dave Froble (davef_at_tsoft-inc.com)
Date: 02/28/05 

Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:10:54 -0500

Robert Deininger wrote:
> In article <112288g53rmok75@corp.supernews.com>, Dave Froble
> <davef@tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Robert Deininger wrote:
>>
>>>In article <4IadnW7fT-L9O73fRVn-tA@igs.net>, "John Smith" <a@nonymous.com>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>The last day for ordering an Alpha system from HP will be 2006-09-30
>>>>>>with last ship day to be 2006-12-31.
>>>>>
>>>>>Will HP make a big splash and cast this in stone, or is this a trial
>>>>>balloon ? If VMS sales are growing, this would mean that Alpha sales
>>>>>are growing and there should be no reason to can the product that has
>>>>>no more development costs to it. HP/Compaq hadv long and often stated
>>>>>that they would sell alphas as long as demand warranted it.
>>>>
>>>>1) Alpha performance only has one direction to go vs. Itanic at this point -
>>>>down.
>>>>2) HP will ensure that new Alpha's remain more expensive than IA64.
>>>
>>>
>>>Since Alpha servers are quite a lot more expensive to build than
>>>Integrity, that seems reasonable. I suppose HP could cut the price of
>>>Alpha systems and sell them at a loss, and undercut IA64 that way. I
>>>can't think of a good reason to do so off the top of my head.
>>>
>>>...
>>
>>You've been singing this song for a while now, with never any details.
>
>
> First, I don't sing. Ever.

Me either. Posting then.

> I think it should be fairly obvious that cost details are proprietary, and
> it is no accident that I omit them. Ok?

At one time I'd grant this 'obvious' omission, but at some point when
things just don't add up, that's no longer a given.

>>The way I see it, if the development is done, and it's just cranking out
>>more boxes, it's justifiable to question your claim. What part(s) is
>>causing the cost to be more?
>>
>>Enclosures? the tooling is in place, and steel is steel.
>
>
> Do you design and buy many enclosures? Do you have any idea how many
> details can be added or left out in a "simple" enclosure? The details all
> cost money. Steel is NOT just steel, and plastic is NOT just plastic. A
> change in color scheme costs significant design money, for example.

But once the DS15 boxes are designed and tooled in all their details,
continuing to produce more is just a matter of of materials, power, and
time in, product out. I may not have built DS15 enclosures, but I do
know a bit about manufacturing.

I'm not asking for a new design, new color, new anything, just the same
old thing continuing to be produced.

Even if the original quote and price was high, offer the manufacturer
the oppurtunity to sell a bit more if he'll just cut the price a bit,
and while I won't say that the mfg will always agree, many times he will
agree. It's cheaper to continue a running production line than to take
it down and tool up for a new product. I've had manufactureres decline
to make a different product because they didn't want the down time of
switching the production to another model, size, and such.

>>CPUs? Ok, what's the cost of an Alpha CPU, and an itanic, to HP?
>
>
> Yeah, like I'm going to post that here. The difference is BIG.

Not including R&D. We all know that Intel is paying for itanic. But
all the Alpha CPUs are now finished with anything except production. If
HP wanted IBM to manufacturer another 100, 1000, or whatever reasonable
number is chosen, I'm talking only about the cost of the additional CPUs.

I don't expect you to specify numbers. But I won't believe the cost is
much different. Alpha is less silicon than itanic, I believe, correct
me if I'm wrong. Possibly IBM is getting a premium for the Alpha CPUs.
  Possibly the Intel subsidity is very substantial. I cannot come up
with any other differentiators.

>>Disks? No possible difference.
>
>
> Disks are the same. The two styles of front-loading, hot-swap
> storageworks bricks are quite different, and I expect the costs are quite
> different as well.

I cannot believe we're talking thousands of dollars here, or even
hundreds. Nor would I consider $10 per drive to be "quite a lot more
expensive".

>>Motherboard and components? They're all in production, just keep producing.
>
>
> Yup, that's easy. Just sign the checks to all the suppliers. Have you
> designed and bought many high-performance circuit boards lately? This is
> an area where lots of tradeoffs are possible. Added costs accumulate
> pretty fast.

Talking the same DS15 board currently in production. $100 more for tha
DS15 board isn't "quite a lot more expensive".

>>Memory? Another commodity. And IA64 seems to require more.
>
>
> Memory chips are pretty much commodities. DIMMs and RIMMs often are not.
> If you think sourcing memory components for servers is trivial, you
> probably haven't thought about it very much. But memory cost is probably
> not a big differentiator between alpha and integrity.

Yes, I have had occasion to source memory components.

AlphaStation 200 - 72 pin parity memory. Possiblly ECC.

AlphaServer 1200 - standard DIMM, parity, ECC.

......

>>Where is your extra cost to continue to pump out DS15s, DS25s, ES45s?
>
>
> Just buy the parts and put them together. Same as rx1600, rx2600,
> rx4640. Or your run-off-the-mill PC. We should expect all of them to
> cost the same, right?

You're not addressing the questions, you're attempting to redicule them.

Is this how you treat customers? No wonder you can't sell anything.

>>Possibly the big stuff has rather high cost low volume parts. But the
>>design is over.
>
>
> All the alphaservers and all the integrity servers (and all the PA-RISC
> servers) are low volume products.
>
>
>>I think it's time for this claim to gain some substance, or go away.
>
>
> Take it or leave it; I really don't care. Your comments seem particularly
> naive. I don't think you want information; you want to argue. I'll take
> your advice and go away.

My comments are based upon years in this business. I do want
information. If you were to post any information, rather than vague
generalitties and abuse, I'd believe what you post. When I've been
given information in the past, I've accepted it and moved on. I don't
want to argue. I also don't consider myself a fool, as you seem to do,
and treat me as.

For a vendor, your attitude is pretty poor.

Dave