Fabio Cardoso wrote:

>What mess ! In Who can we trust ? 
>
>These IT companies are lost and  making the customers crazy ! 
>We cannot have long time planning anymore. Because of this
>lack of vision/planning ! These IT companies think the money 
>of the customers grow in farms ! 
>
>  
>
Who can be trusted?  How many people, like myself, have posted cautions 
about this from the very beginning, and how that the IA64 will become 
nothing more than a proprietary processor for HP, yet without HP's 
authoritative control over its design, direction, or lifespan?  Countless...


I certainly wouldn't want to be in HP's shoes with all of their 
non-Windows OS's and layered products migrating to IA64, to just know 
receive the revelation that Intel could choose to kill off Itanium at 
their whim, at any time!  Once Intel faces the fact that it has cost 
them billions to develop, more to reach a usable state, and then to fab, 
distribute and market, they'll quickly see themselves in the same 
situation HP/Compaq claimed was the problem and reason for killing Alpha 
- too expensive, too little volume, and no profit!  HP will be left 
holding the bag, leaving HP customers who also migrated, holding the 
same bag and here is the final news flash, that bag isn't filled with 
rose buds but rather...


Barry

-- 

Barry Treahy, Jr                       E-mail: Treahy@MMaz.com
Midwest Microwave                          Phone: 480/314-1320
Vice President & CIO                         FAX: 480/661-7028
                       

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:29:38 -0700
"Barry Treahy, Jr." <Treahy@MMaz.com> wrote:

> 
> I certainly wouldn't want to be in HP's shoes with all of their 
> non-Windows OS's and layered products migrating to IA64, to just now 
> receive the revelation that Intel could choose to kill off Itanium at 
> their whim, at any time!

Never mind HP's shoes, how about HP's enterprise customers?  None of the scenarios are at all rosy:

1.  Intel decides to stop losing gobs of money on Itanium and ceases development and production. HP's entire enterprise
line vaporizes and their customer base migrates to IBM and Sun.

2.  Intel sells the Itanic back to HP.  It still makes no sense for HP to develop and sell an incredibly expensive niche processor.  HP tries
to pass the cost on to the customers who then give up in disgust
and migrate to IBM and Sun.

3.  Intel continues to make the Itanic and sells <10k/year to HP, its sole customer.  In order to amortize the cost the price per processor goes up to an obscene amount, HP tries to pass the cost along to the customers, who won't pay it, and move to IBM and Sun instead.

4.  HP finally realizes it is riding a dead horse and commits to an emergency port of all enterprise OS's to Opterons.  Three years later as this port finally nears completion HP's last remaining enterprise customer completes the migration to IBM or Sun.

5.  HP realizes that it has made a horrific, fatal error.  Carly shuts down production of all enterprise computers, sells the service organization, and uses the "savings" to give herself a hefty bonus.  All enterprise customers migrate to IBM or Sun.

Unlike HP, Intel can walk away from this with nothing worse than a (very) bloody nose.  Intel can, and will, produce their own x86 64bit chip, write off Itanic, and they're still in business.  HP, on the other hand, is going to be very hard pressed to keep their HPUX and VMS customers in the aftermath of this debacle.

Pity that terrible management decisions will go unpunished.  Capellas will not have to forfeit any of his past pay or bonuses, even though his decision to move to Itanic may very well prove to be one of the worst business decisions of all time.  Ditto for his HP contemporaries.

Regards,

David Mathog
mathog@caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech

"Barry Treahy, Jr." wrote:
> distribute and market, they'll quickly see themselves in the same
> situation HP/Compaq claimed was the problem and reason for killing Alpha
> - too expensive, too little volume, and no profit! 

There is a big difference. For Digital, Alpha was like VMS/compiler engineers:
A cost centre necessary to generate those oh-so-profitable sales. Alpha,
VMS/compiler engineers were part of a bigger picture (systems). And the big
picture was highly profitable.

For Intel, neither 8086 or IA64 are part of a bigger picture.  For intel, they
are the big picture. So each chip Intel sells must generate some profit. 

And since IA64 is poised to remain a low volume chip, its price will have to
remain very high. The goal to lower the IA64 prices in 3 years is tantamount
to admitting that Intel will have stopped spending big bucks on IA64's
development and will then be able to sell the leftovers at a low price until
they are severely outsped by competing chips (similar to Alpha).

Another option is that Intel will be betting a lot of money that by lowering
prices at some point in time, Intel might eventually be able to generate
sufficient sales of IA64 to them make the unit price low enough to make that
chip competitive. But one wonders why Intel would wait 3 years to do this
instead of doing it right away, especially since it would be very important
for Intel to nip the AMD 64 bit 8086 in the bud. Wait 3 years, and the 64 bit
8086 may have taken sufficent root that Intel will have no hope of making IA64 popular.

David Mathog wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:29:38 -0700
> "Barry Treahy, Jr." <Treahy@MMaz.com> wrote:
> 
> >
> > I certainly wouldn't want to be in HP's shoes with all of their
> > non-Windows OS's and layered products migrating to IA64, to just now
> > receive the revelation that Intel could choose to kill off Itanium at
> > their whim, at any time!
> 
> Never mind HP's shoes, how about HP's enterprise customers?  None of the scenarios are at all rosy:
> 
> 1.  Intel decides to stop losing gobs of money on Itanium and ceases development and production. HP's entire enterprise
> line vaporizes and their customer base migrates to IBM and Sun.
> 
> 2.  Intel sells the Itanic back to HP.  It still makes no sense for HP to develop and sell an incredibly expensive niche processor.  HP tries
> to pass the cost on to the customers who then give up in disgust
> and migrate to IBM and Sun.
> 
> 3.  Intel continues to make the Itanic and sells <10k/year to HP, its sole customer.  In order to amortize the cost the price per processor goes up to an obscene amount, HP tries to pass the cost along to the customers, who won't pay it, and move to IBM and Sun instead.
> 
> 4.  HP finally realizes it is riding a dead horse and commits to an emergency port of all enterprise OS's to Opterons.  Three years later as this port finally nears completion HP's last remaining enterprise customer completes the migration to IBM or Sun.
> 
> 5.  HP realizes that it has made a horrific, fatal error.  Carly shuts down production of all enterprise computers, sells the service organization, and uses the "savings" to give herself a hefty bonus.  All enterprise customers migrate to IBM or Sun.
> 
> Unlike HP, Intel can walk away from this with nothing worse than a (very) bloody nose.  Intel can, and will, produce their own x86 64bit chip, write off Itanic, and they're still in business.  HP, on the other hand, is going to be very hard pressed to keep their HPUX and VMS customers in the aftermath of this debacle.
> 
> Pity that terrible management decisions will go unpunished.  Capellas will not have to forfeit any of his past pay or bonuses, even though his decision to move to Itanic may very well prove to be one of the worst business decisions of all time.  Ditto for his HP contemporaries.

I have to agree with Barry Treahy: *VERY* well said!

hp's VMS division is *REALLY* for it at this stage if they can't somehow
salvage their investments in the porting efforts for VMS to Itanic. And
as JF points out, key staffers have been sold into slavery and trying to
get an Opteron port going now will be problematic, at best since they
lack a source for compilers that is within hp's ability to control
totally.

Having burned the ships, hp faces a long, hard battle back up stream to
the fork in the river to choose another course.

The time between here and hpWorld will indeed be "interesting", for all
of us!

-- 
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://www.djesys.com/

Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page:
http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/

"David J. Dachtera" wrote:
> [snip]
> as JF points out, key staffers have been sold into slavery and trying to
> get an Opteron port going now will be problematic, at best since they
> lack a source for compilers that is within hp's ability to control
> totally.

I may have misattributed that. Apologies.

-- 
David J. Dachtera
dba DJE Systems
http://www.djesys.com/

Unofficial Affordable OpenVMS Home Page:
http://www.djesys.com/vms/soho/

JF Mezei <jfmezei.spamnopt@istop.com> wrote in message news:<4016F0D0.DC16B4FE@istop.com>...
> "Barry Treahy, Jr." wrote:
> > distribute and market, they'll quickly see themselves in the same
> > situation HP/Compaq claimed was the problem and reason for killing Alpha
> > - too expensive, too little volume, and no profit! 
> 
> There is a big difference. For Digital, Alpha was like VMS/compiler engineers:
> A cost centre necessary to generate those oh-so-profitable sales. Alpha,
> VMS/compiler engineers were part of a bigger picture (systems). And the big
> picture was highly profitable.


You said for DEC, for HP ! And about the customers ? 

A great problem of IT companies nowadays is: there aren�t companies
commited to engineering/development anymore !  Just for stock options
values ! I would like to see a bright company like DEC was and HP was.
I think these big high tech companies are faded to the end if they dont
turn to engineering/development/research/ brilian minds ! 
I remember when I was a child and the first VAX came to Brazil ! 
I was noticed in TV etc...as a great and powerfull computer ! It was
more than 20 years ago and that name I will never forget: VAX.

The problem of the companies boards are these guys with MBA and stock
options in their minds ! 




Regards

FC 

 
> For Intel, neither 8086 or IA64 are part of a bigger picture.  For intel, they
> are the big picture. So each chip Intel sells must generate some profit. 
> 
> And since IA64 is poised to remain a low volume chip, its price will have to
> remain very high. The goal to lower the IA64 prices in 3 years is tantamount
> to admitting that Intel will have stopped spending big bucks on IA64's
> development and will then be able to sell the leftovers at a low price until
> they are severely outsped by competing chips (similar to Alpha).
> 
> Another option is that Intel will be betting a lot of money that by lowering
> prices at some point in time, Intel might eventually be able to generate
> sufficient sales of IA64 to them make the unit price low enough to make that
> chip competitive. But one wonders why Intel would wait 3 years to do this
> instead of doing it right away, especially since it would be very important
> for Intel to nip the AMD 64 bit 8086 in the bud. Wait 3 years, and the 64 bit
> 8086 may have taken sufficent root that Intel will have no hope of making IA64 popular.

Fabio Cardoso wrote:
> The problem of the companies boards are these guys with MBA and stock
> options in their minds !

You forgot expensive hair dressers and private jets :-)

David Mathog wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:29:38 -0700
> "Barry Treahy, Jr." <Treahy@MMaz.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>I certainly wouldn't want to be in HP's shoes with all of their 
>>non-Windows OS's and layered products migrating to IA64, to just now 
>>receive the revelation that Intel could choose to kill off Itanium at 
>>their whim, at any time!
> 

Want to bet how long it will take the Choir to start on
Opteron is the one true way if HP has to drop Itanium.

2 days was all it took for Alpha.

I would give it a week this time.

Regards
Andrew Harrison
> 
> Never mind HP's shoes, how about HP's enterprise customers?  None of the scenarios are at all rosy:
> 
> 1.  Intel decides to stop losing gobs of money on Itanium and ceases development and production. HP's entire enterprise
> line vaporizes and their customer base migrates to IBM and Sun.
> 
> 2.  Intel sells the Itanic back to HP.  It still makes no sense for HP to develop and sell an incredibly expensive niche processor.  HP tries
> to pass the cost on to the customers who then give up in disgust
> and migrate to IBM and Sun.
> 
> 3.  Intel continues to make the Itanic and sells <10k/year to HP, its sole customer.  In order to amortize the cost the price per processor goes up to an obscene amount, HP tries to pass the cost along to the customers, who won't pay it, and move to IBM and Sun instead.
> 
> 4.  HP finally realizes it is riding a dead horse and commits to an emergency port of all enterprise OS's to Opterons.  Three years later as this port finally nears completion HP's last remaining enterprise customer completes the migration to IBM or Sun.
> 
> 5.  HP realizes that it has made a horrific, fatal error.  Carly shuts down production of all enterprise computers, sells the service organization, and uses the "savings" to give herself a hefty bonus.  All enterprise customers migrate to IBM or Sun.
> 
> Unlike HP, Intel can walk away from this with nothing worse than a (very) bloody nose.  Intel can, and will, produce their own x86 64bit chip, write off Itanic, and they're still in business.  HP, on the other hand, is going to be very hard pressed to keep their HPUX and VMS customers in the aftermath of this debacle.
> 
> Pity that terrible management decisions will go unpunished.  Capellas will not have to forfeit any of his past pay or bonuses, even though his decision to move to Itanic may very well prove to be one of the worst business decisions of all time.  Ditto for his HP contemporaries.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> David Mathog
> mathog@caltech.edu
> Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech

Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy wrote:
> Want to bet how long it will take the Choir to start on
> Opteron is the one true way if HP has to drop Itanium.

It isn't a given that HP will drop IA64. Its ego and investment in the
platform may force it to rescue it from Intel and continue with it as its own chip.

On the other hand, it is a given that when Intel announces its 64 bit 8086,
that HP will will be one of the "launch customers" for that chip and will
agressively market 64 bit 8086s for midrange servers and everything below.
(essentially the wintel market).  AMD's chips will be used by HP in the same
way that IBM uses IA64s. (to claim "me too" as well as maintain relationship
with vendor). And Carly will make sure she get to be on stage when intel
annouces the 64 bit 8086.

Intel isn't crazy. It knows  64 bits is coming to the 8086. And based on its
recent announcements, it is to happen within 3 years. I think that HP may have
negotiated for Intel to delay the 64 bit 8086 as much as possible to give HP a
face saving way out of IA64. Intel knows that its 32 bit 8086 still has some
wind in its sails and still has brand loyalty/momentum from vendors whose TV
ads are subsidized by Intel, so it can afford to lag behind AMD for some time.


But intel also knows that the 64 bit revolution in the 8086 market is exactly
what it will take to cause another big jump in sales (just as had happened
when win 95 came out, and then for Y2K).  First version of a game that comes
out needing 64 bit 8086, and all the kids will blackmail their parents into
ditching the old computer and buying a new 64 bit one.  It will be good for
Intel, it will be good for HP/Dell and it will be good for Microsoft.

Andrew Harrison SUNUK Consultancy <Andrew_No.Harrison_No@nospamn.sun.com> wrote in message news:<bv86sb$j6j$2@new-usenet.uk.sun.com>...
> David Mathog wrote:
> > On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 08:29:38 -0700
> > "Barry Treahy, Jr." <Treahy@MMaz.com> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>I certainly wouldn't want to be in HP's shoes with all of their 
> >>non-Windows OS's and layered products migrating to IA64, to just now 
> >>receive the revelation that Intel could choose to kill off Itanium at 
> >>their whim, at any time!
> > 
> 
> Want to bet how long it will take the Choir to start on
> Opteron is the one true way if HP has to drop Itanium.
> 
> 2 days was all it took for Alpha.
> 
> I would give it a week this time.
> 
> Regards
> Andrew Harrison
> > 

I don't know what Choir you talk about. As far as I have seen and
know, most VMS people and those who read here like Alpha a lot more
than Itanium. Most of those also know the strength of Opteron. It
isn't that odd that, since Itanium is the current future for VMS,
there are a few people who like to show what Itanium is not that bad
as others like it to be.