Conference 7.286::digital

    
    Re: -1
    
    Where is this customer located?  Out here in Silicon Valley *NOBODY* buys
    Workstations that don't run UNIX.  Yes, we still see a lot of big VMS
    machines being sold, but the little machines are all UNIX.
    
    I also see UNIX in the reseller space more often.  An end-user will 
    be more conservative and stick with what he has.  Resellers want 
    to be free of hardware vendor labels.  They can sell IBM when in an 
    IBM house and DEC in DECland.  
    
    My advice is don't base your vision of the world on the reality you
    see a just one or two customer sites.  Seek out the UNIX users in your
    geography.  You'll see that they are the ones who are pushing the 
    technology envelope and are not just treating their system like an 
    appliance.
    
    -Ed
    

    In my experience, there are a few scenarios:
    
    a)  VMS customer, buys more VMS stuff.  May or may not have UNIX in
    some isolated areas, but they tolerate it.
    
    b)  New customer, wants UNIX, gets it.  Most times we won't even pitch
    VMS to new customers unless they have no bias and want a VMS feature.
    
    c)  New customer, forced into VMS because of an application that only
    runs on VMS.
    
    d)  New customer, wants VMS because of prior experience with VMS within
    another division, another company, etc.
    
    My $.02
    Jim

    If you have a client who has a variety of platforms (VMS and UNIX), and
    requires interconnectivity now... for a low price... and an environment
    that is similar on all of the platforms (going beyond MOTIF et al),
    UNIX is the way to go.
    
    I love the full featured-ness of VMS, but the world isn't interested in
    proprietary systems (when you can move UNIX source over to VMS *via
    TCP/IP* and recompile with little to no changes, then we'll have *Open
    VMS*).
    
    --- Gavin
    

    re .0
    
    I don't even want to begin the discussion about how much business we
    have lost in the last 4-5 years because of our "poor" (percieved or
    otherwise) committment to UNIX and TCP/IP. I too see customer everyday.
    And yes many buy VMS - but mostly those that already have it. We have
    NEVER NEVER NEVER convinced someone to buy VMS when they even thought
    UNIX was a good idea, open, portable, whatever. Whenever we tried, we
    lost - and lost BIG TIME.
    
    BTW, in the last 16 years I have had to become intimate with:
    
    
              NCR - VRX
              NCR - IRX
              IBM - DOS/VSE
              IBM - VM/SP
              IBM - MVS/XA
              DEC - VMS 
              DEC - ULTRIX
    
    I am just a "network slug". I am just about as sick of the O/s wars and
    predjucies as you can get. If you want to survive - DO NOT limit
    yourself to just VMS. Plan to move forward by getting training in other
    areas. It's hard work, but necessary in this day and age.
    
    Gene. 

    IMHO UN*x is a four letter word, it will always be a four letter.
    My customers are part of a world wide national account, they love VMS
     and tolerate UN*x. VMS is their OS of choice, I have had customers try
    to develop packages for their use with VMS they can use a canned
    program but with that other OS they can use it if they sit down a write
    a package for it. I see out in the field what is right for the
    customers to readily use and be productive in the shortest amount of
    time. Try typing in under UN*x and asking for help and see what you get
    back!!!!!!!
    	my other 2 cents worth
    	John
    

    	I have a customer with 3 5820,s serving disk to approx 200
    sparcstations. They are now considering trading them in for 
    6600,s running VMS. But in the workstation arena they will stay 
    with unix not sun but UNIX Decstations maybe.
    	This site had over 150 vaxstations last year. Most of the 
    vaxstations will be gone buy 1993. We were able to get the maintance
    on the sun,s and save the income lost from the vaxstations. actually
    the income increased due to the volume of suns.
    	I think the reasons for the ULTRIX to VMS on the file servers
    is to put them in a position to implement alpha and RELIABILITY!!.
    VMS is a much more stable operating system. The whole operation
    is down when the fileservers are down but a single workstation
    is not so critical.
    	They are very intersted in OSF-1 and they  are also preparing
    to implement it when it is ready. Who knows what it will look like
    but since we are a big part of OSF it should help.

    >    6600,s running VMS. But in the workstation arena they will stay
    >   with unix not sun but UNIX Decstations maybe.
    
    Can you state the customer's reason for moving AWAY from SUN?

    It's amusing how history repeats itself.
    
    VMS is a wonderful operating system.  It's kind of like horses.
    
    When Henry Ford started selling cars, noone wanted them.  Too noisy.
    Too hard to use.  Driving - gee you go too fast.
    
    UNIX is like a Model T.  Noone likes it, but pretty soon everyone will
    have one.
    
    If all you know is VMS, pretty soon you'll be like one of those old
    horse farmers.
    
    As someone who has been in this business for over 20 years, I've seen
    lots of things change.  In the 70's noone wanted to let go of their
    keypunch machines.  Terminals, ugh!  Who would want one of those ugly
    boxes?  They're too damn expensive.
    
    Minicomputer?  What's that?
    
    If you don't like UNIX, then don't learn it.  But, don't paint yourself
    into a corner by knowing ONLY VMS or VAX (and Alpha, too).  Pick up a
    PC (ick) or my preference:  a Macintosh (along with A/UX - Apple's
    Unix) and get conversant in another system environment (operating
    system, hardware, architecture)  or you won't be have a marketable
    skill in years to come.
    
    My daddy taught me this a long time ago:  Know how to do two things
    well, one with your hands.  In addition to this industry (which I never
    intended to be a career) I could make a fair living being a finish
    carpenter.

     rep .7
    
    	The idea is to purchase from the vendor with the best price/performance 
     	at the time. The statement was intended to imply that WE now have that
    	advantage not that the choice will not be SUN. Of course these are not
    	the only factors for the choice of vendors but they do carry the most
    	weight.

    re: .8
    
    For me it's buggywhips :-)
    
    --- Gavin

I think it's funny to see sales'n'customer support types get
all religious about operating systems.   I thought it was
only us hacker nerds that got all emotional about such things.

    
    I'm really shocked by the number of people who are still slagging UNIX.
    
    Look, Ken Olsen said, and I quote:
    
    "Those of you who want job security, learn UNIX"
    
    What other reason do you need?  Its *STUPID* to fight the tide.  
    
    And another thing.
    
    UNIX, by the strictest definition of the word, will no longer exist
    in the not too distant future.  OSF/1 is *NOT* UNIX!  It is based 
    on a new microkernel technology (which VMS is not I might add!)  
    
    Microsoft's NT is also based on microkernel technology.
    
    Now, given this information, what would you do?
    
    -Ed_who's_sick_of_pompous_VMS_types_and_is_no_OS_bigot_himself
    
    

    re .12
    
>    "Those of you who want job security, learn UNIX"
    
    But you must admit, he didn't say "job security in Digital".  :-)
    
    Seriously, I would interpret Ken's statement in that vein, UNIX will
    exist for a long time and will generate employment for many more
    people than VMS for both happy and unhappy reasons.
    
    "Happy" because VMS is more reliable and needs fewer support people per
    whatever.  "Unhappy" because there are a lot of people besides us
    selling it.
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick

re: .13,
    
>    But you must admit, he didn't say "job security in Digital".  :-)

    	That's because we all know there is no such thing.

				    -davo

p.s.	Or, if there is, then it is a well-kept secret!

     
    	Can somebody, in a nutshell, tell me what the attraction is with
    	UNIX? Twenty five words or less. I mean, who can love an O/S with
    	terms like grep and awk?

    I prefer VMS but would like to have pipes. In VMS, you have to send
    something to a file and then manipulate the file.
    
    michael

>    	Can somebody, in a nutshell, tell me what the attraction is with
>   	UNIX? Twenty five words or less. I mean, who can love an O/S with
>    	terms like grep and awk?

it was licensable and relatively easy to port; so when hot new hardware
technology hit the streets and needed an OS, UNIX got picked.  You wanted
speed in the mid-80s to now, you went RISC.  RISC runs UNIX.

The first sentence is only 24 words ;-).

DougO

    
    >RISC runs UNIX.
    
    RISC (Alpha) also runs VMS.
    
    John

Hey, if your .15 was an honest question, you'll have noticed that my
.17 was an honest answer, including the key market-oriented phrase,
"in the mid-80s to now".  I'm pleased as punch that Alpha will finally
bring the speed of RISC to VMS, sometime in late 1992 (for our customers), 
(and also that OSF/1 will be there on Alpha) but that fact doesn't change 
the answer for the timeframe I gave.  Did you really want an answer to
why UNIX became so popular, or are you just potshotting in the OS wars?
If you are, hey, have fun, I won't waste any more time discussing the
real answers to legitimate business quiestions with potshotters.

DougO

There's also the "myth of portability".  Many customers out here believe
that they can take any application developed under any UNIX system, and 
run it on any (cheap) UNIX box, unchanged.  I say "myth" because in my
observation most all complex applications take advantage of the unique
extensions implemented by the particular UNIX system they were developed on.
Thus, even a UNIX-UNIX port involves some effort.  If UNIX were truely
universally standard, this would not be an issue, but it is not so.

Kevin

    re: .-1
    
    Any reputable software vendor selling in the UNIX market will have
    versions for the major UNIX varients (ULTRIX, SunOS, HP-UX, AIX, AUX,
    etc., etc.).  I agree that VMS is the absolute *best* for copy-and-run
    code from one version to another (and platform to platform), and love
    to get digs into my collegues that support UNIX.  "See this code
    running on this new VAX 4000, it's the same code that ran on the 11/780
    6 years ago."
    
    Of course, they come back with the response of "Who cares?  My n-UNIX
    platforms all run FrameMaker, SAS, Mathematica, etc."  That's when I
    have to shoot them... :-)
    
    --- Gavin

    When I was a customer, I pushed UNIX although there was only one
    (PWB-Programmers Wrkbench). Since then, we've got more versions of UNIX
    than Proprietary O/S's. Back then though, it was SO much easier for a
    programmer (or near-programmer) to write an application with shells
    **SO** much easier than it was with say RSX, UNIX was a good deal.
    Besides, there were all thouse universities getting UNIX for nex to
    nothing compared to "real" O/S's, look at all the students that got
    trained with little knowledge of VMS entering the job market.
    
    I claim that COTS will overtake UNIX in importance for the 90s. After
    all, it is the application the customer wants portable (not the O/S),
    isn't it?

    Customers have failed and failed and failed to develop large-scale
    applications.  Most such activites have used "proprietary" Operating 
    Systems.  Sucesses have been rare in MVS, CMS, DOS/VS, GCOS, SCOPE,
    KRONOS and every other mainframe OS you can think of.  But sucessful
    applications have had huge paybacks.
    
    Meanwhile, these same customers have been frequently sucessful in
    developing small and medium-scaled applications.  VMS has certainly
    been there - Expensive, Fast, and Good.  UNIX has also been there -
    Cheap, Faster, and "Good Enough".  The latter offering will always
    beat the former.
    
    Operating Systems are getting the credit for frequent successful
    development efforts, when in fact the size of the application (small-
    to medium) is more significant.  Small projects succeed more often
    than large projects.
    
    Small projects require inexpensive platforms.  VMS is cheaper than
    MVS/CICS (faster and better too!).  UNIX is cheaper than VMS, and
    faster too!    And customers will definitely prefer an operating 
    system that runs on more than one vendor's hardware.  Too many
    customers have been gouged by sole-source vendors before the days
    of "plug-compatable" and clone markets developed.
    
    UNIX boxes will continue to multiply wherever medium-scale
    applications, or "black box" components of larger systems,
    must be developed.
    
    Customers that have the sense to break up large efforts into multiple
    small projects, will be more sucessfull.  They will buy into UNIX
    unless something cheaper comes along.
    

>        <<< Note 1667.11 by MU::PORTER "if it ain't broken, break it" >>>
>
>I think it's funny to see sales'n'customer support types get
>all religious about operating systems.   I thought it was
>only us hacker nerds that got all emotional about such things.

You'ld be suprised how many of us "'sales'n'customer support types" are also
"hacker nerds"...

/mike --  Who will kill the next engineering bastard who comes back with
"whaddaya mean you're gonna fix/change/build/whatever that in the field"

     re .19
    
    Nope, I'm not "potshotting in the OS wars". My question was serious.
    I haven't had much exposure to UNIX, but the little time I have spent
    on it, it didn't seem to be too user friendly. That was the gist of
    my question: why embrace an OS that doesn't seem to be user friendly?
    Aren't the end users the ones that get stuck with trying to interpret
    acronyms (that don't make sense, in many cases) for verbs?
    
    You are correct..your answer makes perfect sense for the timeframe
    (mid 80's -> now). 
    
    	John

    UNIX is easy to use, cheap to manage and recovers from most problems
    (via a reboot) quickly.

>    UNIX is easy to use, cheap to manage and recovers from most problems
>    (via a reboot) quickly.

	Sounds like P/OS. :-)

			Alfred

    UNIX never says "returning you to main menu (get a coffee)"

    It all seems to be a move toward "standards" doesn't it?  There can
    only be one "sandard" and UNIX edged out, although, I'd have to agree
    with an earlier reply that identified the major myth about the UNIX
    "standard", that being that there are so dammed many flavors of UNIX
    that it isn't a standard at all!  At least DEC admits it replacing the
    "N" with "LTR" when it named it's proprietary version.
    
    Sometimes conforming to standards isn't all it's cracked up to be.  I
    do a lot with relational databases and had recently switched gears over
    to SQL ("S"tandard Query Language).  This step toward the standard was
    also a step backward in technology and ease of use, BUT, I'm coding in
    a "standard"!  Sometimes I question whether I did the right thing or
    not. When I have to code 4 external SQL procedures to do what a single
    RDML call did, the answer I come up with is ofter times "NO". 
    
    Internal DEC manufacturing and engineering groups (like the one I work
    in) have soooo much invested in VMS dependent code and training that a 
    quick transfer to U*IX is unrealistic.  Eyes roll in their sockets of 
    software groups when even a long term migration is proposed. In hard 
    economic times, I'm not sure DEC or any other VMS house can justify 
    recoding/retraining to live in the U*IX environment just to say that 
    they did it, or, to enjoy some marginal performance improvements. I
    mean replacing an 8000 series with a 9000 would probably be cheaper and
    give you superior performance in the long run. 
    
    Yes, I'll learn UNIX... eventually, probably the ULTRIX version because
    Ken's right, that's what's coming.  Although UNIX, like dinosaurs, ice
    boxes and trench warfare, will fade into antiquity when a new "standard" 
    emerges... leaving two standards which means neither one's a
    standard... if you catch my drift.  Maybe the new emerging standard
    will be full featured VMS on ALPHA, although a great marketing ploy
    would be to call it "UVMIX" !
    
    I'm not hugging any trees here.  It's just that sometimes I step back
    and remember that a computer is only a tool to help me do my job so
    that the stockholders (me amoung them) can make money.  If the tool I'm
    working with runs fine, and I'm used to it, and replacing it will cost
    a lot, well, I have to ask myself "why?", especially when the potential
    replacement hasn't proven itself to be that much better if better at
    all.
    
    
    Dave

    I remember once having a discussion with a fellow engineer about the
    pro's and cons of using 4GL vs 3GL.  I was told that even though 4GL
    requires a lot more horsepower, all the bigshot computer critics you
    read in the technical journals lean toward 4GL because of reduce coding 
    time, flexibility and ease of use.  The same argument was given to support 
    the use of object oriented code.
    
    So tell me again why VMS was chosen over UNIX? 
    
    Dave

> why VMS was chosen over UNIX? 

Customers want an 'open system'

Due to many factors UNIX is seen as open, VMS is not (AT THE MOMENT).

UNIX is fast and cheap.

Actually using Motif or something similar, I shouldn't/don't care what
the OS is.

    Have you ever been to Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center?  They're a
    customer, you know, and I was over there on Tuesday talking to their
    Tech Support people.  If you've been there, you've probably seen the
    touch screen directory service kiosk's all over the place.  You can get
    information about the park, hotels, and restaurants.
    
    The touch screens are controlled by VAX 11/750's, running UNIX (BSD
    4.1).  The reason they have FIVE 11/750's and haven't upgraded to a
    smaller, cheaper box, is that they are totally locked into BSD 4.1 by
    the application, and the interfaces to those touch screens.  They don't
    even have TCP/IP.  I guess the vendor who wrote the application should
    have done a better job of writing portable code, huh.
    
    Guess who developed, wrote and installed them?
    
    Bell Labs.
    
    So much for portability.
    
    tim
    

        Re: .28
        
>    UNIX never says "returning you to main menu (get a coffee)"

        I assume this was a joke, but I don't get it.  I've never seen
        that message from either VMS or UNIX, but I have seen overloaded
        systems and poorly written applications with both VMS and UNIX. 
        Nobody can claim that their system will both do what users
        demand and provide fast response no matter what the load.

        					B.J.

    The joke is based on a message that was included in the "Professional
    Operating System" or POS.
    
    "Returning to main menu" is what the message said and the operation to
    return to the main menu took 30 seconds to a minute on minimum, but
    supported, configurations of the Professional 300 Series.
    
    This annecdote is burned in the brain of people who were around here in
    the 1982-1984 timeframe.

    I'm the one that started this note and it seems to have gone off
    on a tangent.  I simply asked where are the boxes?  
    
    I've seen the statement "customers want open systems".  I'll tell
    you what customers want - PROFITS!  My largest customer here on
    the east coast (life didn't begin in California) is Westinghouse.
    They make turbine blades for generators and submarines. They have
    25 Vaxstations, 6410-6420 cluster, 6310 standalone, 11750, and
    7 Pdp11's.  They just ordered 12 new Vaxstation 4000's and plan
    to add a 6510 to the cluster.  The Pdp's are driving floor equipment
    along with some microvax's I forgot to mention.  They are running
    DNC software with RDB database.  It all works together and they
    are making bundles of money - happy customer!
    
    In our area (western North Carolina) there are over 600 VAX machines.
    We have 3 UNIX boxes - 5810 and some 5500's.  
    
    I,m not knocking UNIX, so you developers don't get so bent out of
    shape about it.  It just seems that the ones that feel strongly
    about open systems are those that are pushing it.  What's wrong
    with proprietary if it does the job?  We have a customer running
    a plant on a Pdp1105 with paper tape.  They will not get rid of
    it because it is doing the job. 
    
    

re: .0, .35

You don't see the boxes because the people who are buying the boxes are
potential customers that we didn't turn into customers.

Bob

    
    Yeah, -1 has a lot of merit to it.  I worked for some of those 20 man
    startups.  Unfortunately, a bunch of big, bloated companies with less
    than passionate affinity for UNIX put us out of business.  How did
    they do it?  Not by selling their propreitary systems!
    
    -Ed
    

	to answer the base note:

	the unix boxes are at small companies who don't even know what
	unix is. They buy a complete solution, based on the application,
	and the os doesn't mean a thing, as long as it works. So
	resellers sell unix: it's cheaper. Why don't you see them? 
	Because DEC doesn't know how to sell to small companies. 
	Westinghouse and the other Fortune 1000 companies appreciate VMS,
	but they aren't buying computers hand-over-fist
	like they used to. They growth in the computer industry is
	small businesses. And they are buying PCs. And they either
	network them together (Novell) or they running multiuser 
	minicomputer-like environments with UNIX. 

	If you really want to know where the boxes are: Read UNIX Today. 
    	They frequently list the RFPs put out by not-so-small companies 
    	like JC Penny, TACO Bell, K-Mart, Sherwin-Williams, to name a few. 
    	These companies and others are buying UNIX boxes for commercial 
    	applications. 
    
    	Commercial applications is the key thing here: the
    	technical/engineering/manufacturing industries have been
    	computerized for some time: the small companies that are 
    	just becoming computerized are where the growth is. And all
    	they want is a cheap os that works. That's UNIX for most of them. 

Re: .32

Bell Labs writing non-portable Unix code.

It figures. I'm just surprised they wrote it for BSD. I guess System V wasn't 
out yet when they did.

Remember, Bell Labs developed Unix for the PDP-11; Berkeley then added virtual
memory support. Bell then rewrote Unix, taking OUT many of the Berkeley features.


Some code is quite portable, but to be portable across both SysV and BSD-derived
systems can take a lot of work. One excellent example is the X window system.
This is quite easy to port to any Unix system, and to many other operating
systems.



VMS has some great features - but most applications don't use them. Error 
handling, for example, is very good - but when was the last time you installed
your own error handler? At least this doesn't get in your way if you don't need
it, the way RMS does, when all you want is a stream-lf file.

Also, on the same hardware, Ultrix is much faster. I got much better login
(DECwindows session) performance, as well as general response time improvements
on my VS3100. (Now, I have a DS3100, and it really flies!)

Then, if you want your application to run on non-DEC hardware, you can't take 
advantages of all its features. But, if you need its features, its great.
VMS has tremendous advantages in fault-tolerance and reliability, with clustering,
volume shadowing, etc. This is particularly valuable for transaction processing
and other business applications. But, for my usual task of software development,
Unix (Ultrix) is better, although, I admit, it takes a while to learn.

However, unlike an earlier reply, I find that my VMS gets rusty much faster
than my Unix.

This has gone on much more than 25 words, so I'll stop here.

Actually the Bell Labs guys are fairly notorious for treating operating system
and compiler bugs as features.  I understand that one of the problems with
the VAX System V code is that a few of the more grotesque bugs were cleaned up
and, as a result, several Bell Labs-written applications fail to run, even 
thought VAX Sytem V is SVID-compliant.

-dave

If memory serves, those 11/750s were put into service running BSD prior to
1983, before AT&T could sell System V. For some time, only BSD licenses could
be sold outside the educational community. 

    
    re: -1
    
    Baloney!  Plexus and Onyx had been selling Ver. 7 and SysIII to
    commercial customers for years before 1983!
    
    -Ed_the_ancient_unix_curmudgeon
    
    

    re .-1
    
    Yes, but I think there was legally a difference between
    the phone company selling Unix, and anyone else selling Unix.

    
    re .-1
    
    Perhaps, but they *DID* sell Unix to Onyx and Plexus.
    
    On another note, I'm thinking of starting a list of "dead" Unix vendors.
    Here's a start.  Can anyone add to it?
    
    Onyx
    Plexus
    Pixel
    Wicat
    Callan
    CCI
    SBE
    Zilog
    Alpha Micro
    
    Some might not be "dead" yet, but they certainly are near death.
    
    -Ed_the_ancient_unix_curmudgeon
    
    

AT&T sold Unix licenses to commercial sites since around 1978 (we had
one in R&D in 1978-1979) for, as I recall, $10,000.  University licenses
were on the order of $100 during the same period.  These were for PDP-11
licenses.

Martin.

    If I recall, Disney bought the 11/750's for Epcot around 1982, FWIW...
    
    ...and they're still running.
    
    tim
    

    Fortune Systems.  32:16
    
    karl

    
    Here's another:
    
    Victory Computer Systems
    
    -Ed