Re: New itaniums out at 2.5x perform gain

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
And exactly why wold they announce that they were moving VMS to x86-64
rather than just announcing that they are concentrating on their real
business, Windows boxes, and pulling the plug on VMS?

Pride and money.

Lets look at pride: HP has to admit IA64 was a big mistake, but to make
up for it, it promises to port all its IA64 based systems to the 8086.

Lets look at money:
First, porting VMS to the 8086 should be less expensive than Alpha to
IA64. They now have setup the abililty to have common code base, cleaned
up the code to make porting easier, AND have already gotten the EFI
stuff installed and running on VMS. So the port to the 8086 should cost
less and take less time.

Also, while the IA64 port may have been a surprise to all but a very few
VMS engineers, the writing has been on the wall for years now that the
8086 is (unfortunatly) the way to go, and I would be very disapointed if
nobody within VMS engineering had taken a serious look at what it would
take.

I would also not be surprised if the folks at HP-UX, NSK and VMS had
talks with Intel on what features they might need in the 8086 to make
porting much easier. Such features are likely to appear in the 2007 timeframe.

I fail to see the logic int his. IA64 is costing them buckets of
money. Cance3ling it would end stop the bleeding and let them cut
even more jobs making them look even better to the Casino Analysts.

It all ddpends on what sort of contracts were signed. Remember that HP
sent 3 billion bucks to Intel not too long ago (along with its remaining
chip engineers), and is also building that 10 billion fund allegedly to
help port software to that IA64 contraption. This may be structured in
such a way that you cannot cancel IA64 until a certain date.

Also, in 2004 when Carly would have set this in motion, it is likely
that she would have wanted to keep the door open should, by miracle,
IA64 become popular. "Give it a couple of years and then can it".

Should Intel kill IA64 prematurely, it might cost Intel mega bucks to
compensate HP, much more than paying a few engineers to thinker with the
contraption and produce a faster one every couple of years.


You keep assuming that they have any plan or even desire to migrate VMS
any further. If that were likely, considering how long it can take to
go from desire to a viable commercial product, the work would have already
begun.

Yes, it had begun and was happening in the basement of ZKO, until I
uncovered it and they quickly replaced the office furniture with
sporting equipment, removing any traces that there was ever a covert
porting effort going on :-) :-) ;-)

The VMS engineers have all the tools already to manage a porting effort.
If, in 2007, Intel/HP announce the end of the line for IA64, it will
probably includd one more iteration of that "thing" and last a few
years, during which VMS can be ported. (this is where the killing of
Alpha sales at this point in time is a very wrong mistake).


Face it, toy controller or high end chip, the 8086 is solid as a rock
with no rumours of it going away anytime soon. Move VMS to the 8086,
and you all once and for all any rumours of VMS's demise because as long
as it is profitable, there is no reason to kill it. And customers having
more confidence in a VMS rejuvenation will stay or buy in to VMS and
you'll see real growth.


Right now, the sad reality is that a weakened VMS is using its last
energies to try to support IA64. Move to 8086 and it is the strong 8086
(in the marketplace) that will help and support VMS and let it grow.

IA64 is a liability to VMS. 8086 would be an asset to VMS.
.

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