Re: Question for the Group
- From: JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnot@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 00:00:35 -0400
Not long ago, there was an article on how airlines now assign employees to monitor discussion groups on the internet to spot horror stories, investigate internally and fix problems to prevent/reduce such horror stories.
Not only have airline realised that the bad publicity is hurting them, but they have realised that these forums are a great place to spot problems in their "systems" and bypass layers of employees who are affraid to report bad news to their bosses.
If I had been HP's top management, especially Stallard (due to his terrible first words to the VMS community expecting them to move to HPUX after 9 months of total silence on the future of VMS), I would have come here and made a plea to be in touch with the community to ensure that VMS's potential is fully leveraged by HP and to spot problems "in the system".
Instead, we got NOTHING. NADA. NOT A WORD.
Were it not for Sue, the VMS community would not have gotten ANY information about the future of VMS since june 25 2001. And we all realise that Sue has her hands tied behind her back and still must represent her employer. Just try to imagine what VMS would be like had Sue not been there for us in the last couple of years. No boot camp. And consider the number of fires that Sue helped put out with individual customers who couldn't get the time of day in VMS format from their local office.
However, Sue does not appear to have the support of anyone above her because she appears to be swimming against a strong current from higher management.
How can Sue realistically get Cerner back to VMS if Hurd, Livermore or Stallard negotiated multi-million deals to get Cerner to drop VMS ?
In real life, the simplest way to save VMS would be to clone Sue's brain and implant the copy into Ann Livermore's head.
HP HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY GIVEN SIMPLE TASKS IT CAN DO TO SHUT US UP AND MAKE US FEEL COMFORTABLE (marketing) AND HP HAS STEADFASTEDLY REFUSED TO CHANGE ITS POLICY TO PREVENT MARKETING OF VMS.
I do not know who complained to mr Dachtera, but if it is an HP employee higher than Sue, then that employee is totally imcompetant because he/she/it should know that we have been asking for the same thing FOR OVER A DECADE and the onwer of VMS have steadfastedly refused to market VMS at even a modest level.
HP should know that the short live "renaissance" preiod not long before the premedidated massacre of Alpha had caused VMS to grow by close to 10% in a few months. And that was a very modest marketing budget. But it proves that VMS has great potential.
An HP employee who does not understand the c.o.v. community is one which is detached with reality. This is quite similar to the state of IBM as Gerstner took over. Only happy customers were polled to ensure that top management thought the lower management were doing a great job and customers were happy.
Like it or not, we are the ones who suffer first from the slow death of VMS. We are the ones to see VMS budgets stagnate while projects for other platforms galore. We are the first ones to lose our jobs or not have contracts renewed because no more develop ent is done on VMS. HP only sees some effect years later when that system is taken off maintenance.
And if HP (corp) says that VMS has a assured future, how come they would get Cerner to switch to HP-UX and drop VMS ?
Gartner spotted the signs of a cancer for VMS. Nobody believed them, and pointed to the fact that a couple years later, VMS wasn't dead yet. Meanwhile, customers have been leaving VMS one by one. If nothing is done to fix it, the cancer will kill VMS.
With HP nw supporting Cerner's move away from VMS to HP-UX (which is reality means customers moving to IBM), it is an indication that HP has truly put VMS in paliative care and expects it to die soon.
And just like they promised great future for alpha right up until June 24 2001 at 23:59, they will promise a great future for VMS right up until the day they announce it is dead. And the folks in VMS management won't even know that announcement will be coming until it is made public.
WE ARE NOT THE ONES HURTING VMS.
We are merely pointing to the fact that it is HP IS HURTING VMS.
Since June 25 2001 (alpha genocide), September 7th 2001 (Carly/Curly wedding announcement) and May 7th 2001 (official wedding of HP/Compaq), HP has done NOTHING to gain our trust and signifiy that it truly intends to make VMS succesful.
VMS employees have done their darndest to minimise the damage done by HP corporate with regards to VMS. But the damage is being done by HP corporate every day they refuse to market VMS. Everyday they refuse to allow a press release about VMS to go to their main press release web site and out to the newswires.
Either VMS management is truly incompetant and doesn't know how to work the HP machines to get a press release out "officially", or HP has a hard policy to prohibit any VMS marketing, so VMS management is stuck with whatever internal means they have to make as much noise as their can DESPITE HP.
Lets take the first possibility. If VMS management were truly incompetant, then the 4 persons above it (Fink, Stallard, Livermore, Hurd) would do something to rectify this and not jeoperdise a great source or profit. Clearly, nothing is being done. And this lack of marketing has transcended multiple VMS managers from Marcello to Gorham to Hurd in just the recent years.
I have one thing to say to VMS management: You may have nice plush severance packages when they announce the end of VMS, but WE DO NOT. We have an ever greater self interest in the success of VMS than you do.
And if you truly care about the future of VMS, you would risk talking to use in private and tell us wher the real problems are within HP so that we can then write our letters to Hurd in such a way that he might start to look in to the right areas and discover a problem and fix it.
We now there are problems. If we don't get any info about them under the table, then our letters of complaints are aimless and have far less impact.
Hurd *should* be OS neutral because he is not from any HP heritage (HP, Compaq, DEC, Tandem). If the people below him (Stallard, Livermore) have a strong bias, then Hurd has to be told so he can discover that bias and learn to work around it and isolate those people who have been guiding him in the wrong direction since he cae on-board.
And if you are a former employee, then your letter to Hurd could have far greater impact if you can freely "tell it like it is" and point to the very poeple who are squandering a great source of revenus/profits and misguiding Hurd on the true potential of VMS.
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