Re: SGI files for chapter 11

Malcolm Dunnett wrote:
Presumably they still believe (rightly or wrongly) that IA64 is
a better choice,

I am not convinced of that. Back in February 2004, both Intel and HP
started to make statements that opened the door to the end of IA64 to be
replacved by the 8086. HP head would have read the IDG study that showed
a very significant decrease of customer based due to the migration to
that IA64. And they know that decision to restrict that IA64 thing to
the high end only basically sealed that chip's fate because it would
never achieve the volumes necessary to justified continued spending for
its upgrades.

Killing a chip takes time. They shifted resources to the 8086 and now
you have more and more delays in IA64. (not only in actual delays, but
also shifting features to subsequent releases).


confidence the good folks in VMS engineering would have no great
difficulty doing this port if asked.

Same here. However, I am not sure that I have confidence that VMS
management has the guts to fight HP management to get the funding to
port to the 8086.

VMS management and engineers have been so excellent at toeing the HP
corporate line and supporting that IA64 thing that I am wondering if
they haven't begun to actually believe what they say. Hopefully not and
they can still see the reality.

No, what OpenVMS needs is customers who see value in it that they
can't get elsewhere. The processor it runs on is just a technical detail.

It is much more than a technical detail. Customers want to see VMS on a
platform whose future is not constantly being questioned. If you're
going to drop the best of the best (Alpha) to go to a commoditychip,
then you really need to go to a commodity chip and not buy some other
proprietary chip with inferior performance and a future just as dismal
as that of alpha.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Time to produce EV79s!
    ... The reality is that large volume chips strategic to the chip maker are ... otherwise it loses market share to AMD and that makes the news. ... Wall street hasn't noticed IA64 ... This locks VMS out of the biggets portion of the ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Time to produce EV79s!
    ... The reality is that large volume chips strategic to the chip maker are ... otherwise it loses market share to AMD and that makes the news. ... Wall street hasn't noticed IA64 ... This locks VMS out of the biggets portion of the ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Maybe HP should get out of the hardware business....
    ... For the people who do not believe in IA64 as a long term platform, VMS ... Intel may have lots of money, but it also has auditors and shareholders. ... commodity chip to replace the 8086, and part of the development was also ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: SGI files for chapter 11
    ... started to make statements that opened the door to the end of IA64 to be ... Killing a chip takes time. ... management has the guts to fight HP management to get the funding to ... as that of alpha. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Why did VMS users go along with the itanium farce?
    ... were talking about the next generation x86-32 chip, or x86-64 chip, just ... that VMS would arbitrarily support any hardware... ... The NDA is needed because you would see the roadmap for the ... > HP will continue to make IA64 based machines in a certain range of size. ...
    (comp.os.vms)