Copyright 1995-2016 by Kevin G. Barkes All rights reserved. This article may be duplicated or redistributed provided no alterations of any kind are made to this file. This edition of DCL Dialogue is sponsored by Networking Dynamics, developers and marketers of productivity software for OpenVMS systems. Contact our website www.networkingdynamics.com to download free demos of our software and see how you will save time, money and raise productivity! Be sure to mention DCL Dialogue! DCL DIALOGUE Skullduggery? Originally published October, 1995 By Kevin G. Barkes If you're a conspiracy fan (and these days, who isn't?), recent moves by Digital and Microsoft appear to be positioning the pair for eventual world takeover. If things go according to plan, Windows NT/OpenVMS will become the dominant operating systems and DEC's Alpha will grab a big hunk of Intel market share. The desktop will be all Windows-based. Users who need tactical nuclear computing power will have their desktops connected seamlessly and invisibly to big servers running OpenVMS. The bad news is Microsoft wins. The good news is also that Microsoft wins, and at least the future is no longer in doubt. With a few exceptions, most everyone will adopt NT by the end of the decade. Think I'm nuts? Consider the following: ITEM: According to the federal government, Windows NT is now an "open" system because of its Posix compliance. The General Services Administration ruled against a bunch of Unix vendors who had protested a Unisys bid to sell about $200 million in NT-based servers and workstations to the Coast Guard. The vendors said NT wasn't Unix and therefore wasn't really open. (Gee, and I was always told "Open" did not mean "Unix", and vice-versa.) This is a major blow to Unix, since it finally opens the entire federal bureaucracy to NT. OpenVMS has been Posix-compliant for some time now, but wasn't really considered a threat to the *nixers because of Digital's (ahem) marketing talents. But with Microsoft in the game, everything changes. Picture a bunch of yapping little puppies nipping at each others' tails. Now picture Godzilla's foot crushing the cute-if-clueless canines into moist, furry oblivion. The sounds you hear are Microsoft raking in about $4 billion in guvmint contracts in the next year, Digital cranking out Alpha boxes at record rates, and Godzilla scraping the crud off his foot. ITEM: Still another Unix unification effort is underway, sort of like the computer software equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This time out, about 50 hardware and software vendors are trying to agree on a 64-bit Unix applications programming interface (API) to present to X/Open within the next two months. The idea is this will help put the brakes to NT. Yeah, right. Doesn't seem too likely, since prior unification efforts haven't been very successful and Unix vendors continue to differentiate their operating systems by adding non-standard "enhancements" to their base products. (Digital is involved here because of Digital Unix and because propeller-heads will still demand Unix availability and support.) ITEM: A lot of those aforementioned Unix application software vendors are busily porting their wares to NT. If you were a VMS shop that migrated to Unix, it's deja vu all over again. ITEM: Digital and Microsoft made a cryptic announcement in May about a program "integrating" OpenVMS and NT, with NT handling the desktop and user interfaces and VMS taking care of the back end, heavy-duty server-type functions. ITEM: In August, Digital and Microsoft not only get in bed together, they exchange vital bodily fluids. The pair annouced a major expansion of their former tentative partnership, exchanging key patents and technologies and offering each other major support enhancements. Microsoft gets Digital's family jewels, its VMS clustering code. Shaving a year off its development time for NT clusters and picking up more than a decade of clustering know-how, the move makes NT a legitimate player for big systems. Digital gets NT's source code, enabling its engineering people to more tightly integrate the two operating systems and to find all the Easter eggs the Microsoft folks hid in the software. Digital also gets a guarantee that its Alpha systems will no longer be given lower priority in NT software releases. Microsoft promised it would release its BackOffice applications for Alpha day and date with its Intel packages, and client software day and date with other RISC systems. To help shore up its lousy reputation for business systems support, Microsoft is lending Digital $50 to $100 million or so to train 1,500 Digital software support specialists in NT. DEC shipped a couple hundred Alpha boxes to Microsoft to speed up things on that end. So, what does this all mean? Looks like Digital feels NT is unbeatable and decided to capitalize on its common parentage and design featureswith VMS by hooking up with Microsoft. This insures VMS has a future, albeit a behind-the-scenes one. Its hardware business gets a boost with Microsoft pushing Alphas for NT front-ends and VMS back-ends. And Microsoft gets a little leverage against Intel without having to do anything in particular. Forget Windows 95, which is nothing more than an interim cash generator until the Intel world catches up with the hardware requirements for NT. Get a copy of NT Workstation now and get familiar with it. This is where the future lies. Maybe those of us who didn't flee to Unix and stubbornly held on to VMS made the right decision, eh? And just think, all those VMS skills will be even more marketable in the future. Still, it makes you wonder what would have happened if Digital had developed a shrink-wrapped, reasonably priced VMS that would have run on Intel platforms. NEXT MONTH: KGB tempts the inevitable and buys another system from DEC Direct though Digital Leasing and Remarketing, er, GE Credit, er, Digital Financial Services. How did things go? Well, the quote for the Pentium-based server was obtained on June 6, and as of August 15 the machine still isn't here. The gory details in November. ******************* Kevin G. Barkes is an independent consultant who from time to time wishes Bill Gates had stayed in college and become an accountant. Kevin lurks on comp.os.vms and can be reached at kgbarkes@gmail.com.