Re: Intel neuters Montvale, Itanic screams in alarm

From: Neil Rieck (n.rieck_at_sympatico.ca)
Date: 06/12/05 

Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2005 11:13:42 -0400

"Larry Kilgallen" <Kilgallen@SpamCop.net> wrote in message
news:UJAFRCfHWYnN@eisner.encompasserve.org...
> In article <uWUqe.2662$yU.6539@news20.bellglobal.com>, "Neil Rieck"
> <n.rieck@sympatico.ca> writes:
>
>> There were many compelling reasons for switching from VAX to Alpha and
>> yet
>> many balked at that idea (and still do; my employer probably has one VAX
>> for every Alpha).
>
> I don't see that as balking. The fact that a vendor switches to making
> a different machine is no reason to discard existing machines.
>
> 23 years ago I was consulting at a shop with several 780s. The
> beancounters came around and said it was time to sell the oldest
> one, since it had reached the end of its depreciation. They were
> paying no attention at all to whether the machine was doing useful
> work for the company. Thankfully, they lost that battle.
>

At my employer's company it all depends on how the pitch was made and
whether the ultimate decision makers were technologically savvy. IMHO, as
long as you could get all the software to run on Alpha, there was no reason
to stay with VAX. Lower power requirements and lower air conditioning costs
alone justified the change over (provided these costs weren't hidden in
someone else's budget). In some cases we couldn't install any new computer
systems in certain locations because the UPS was at full capacity. Switching
from VAX to Alpha (or other vendor's older equipment to newer) freed up some
UPS capacity which allowed the installation of newer systems.

But back to my original point from the previous post, there were obvious
reasons for industry to switch over from VAX to Alpha. Right now there are a
lot of people using "x86" and/or "64-bit extended x86" technologies who do
NOT have any obvious reasons to switch over to Itanium. I fear that Itanium
may never be anything more than a niche market which will make it an easy
kill target if Intel falls on hard times.

Neil Rieck
Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge,
Ontario, Canada.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/links/cool_openvms.html

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