INFO-VAX Mon, 29 Jan 2007 Volume 2007 : Issue 57 Contents: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Another DS10L LOttery RE: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Another DS10L LOttery Re: Emulex CS09 configuration help? Re: Excellent OpenVMS Pearl - Customer Testimonial - Saturn Electrohandels Re: FPGA VAX Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? RE: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Re: Kermit Large File Support Re: OpenSSL & OSU Re: OpenSSL & OSU Re: PL/I for Itanium Re: Purging across nodes deletes the only version of a file Re: Remember back before FTP? Need to x-fer a file via terminal protocol. Re: Remember back before FTP? Need to x-fer a file via terminal protocol. Re: VMS in the HP hierarchy Re: VMS in the HP hierarchy ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 18:24:01 -0500 From: "David Turner, Island Computers US Corp" Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: Forgot to mention If you have already applied you will be listed in the prize draw dt "David Turner, Island Computers US Corp" wrote in message news:Haavh.5460$fC2.4190@bignews4.bellsouth.net... > If you have already applied then don't send another entry > If you haven't then by all means send us an email including > > Email us with "free ds10l" in the subject line and the info below in the > message > > Daytime telephone number (for fedex) > Email address > Delivery address > > You are responsible for shipping > USA is between $25 and $35 depending on E or W coast > International can be scary: Canada about $90 and UK about $120 > All other countries - call fedex for pricing and take off about 35% (our > discount) > > Lottery winner will be notified on Wednesday (this wednesday) > > David > ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 16:59:49 -0800 From: "winston19842005@yahoo.com" Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <1170032389.043016.289490@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> On Jan 28, 6:24 pm, "David Turner, Island Computers US Corp" wrote: > Forgot to mention > > If you have already applied you will be listed in the prize draw > > dt > "David Turner, Island Computers US Corp" wrote in > messagenews:Haavh.5460$fC2.4190@bignews4.bellsouth.net... > > > If you have already applied then don't send another entry > > If you haven't then by all means send us an email including > > > Email us with "freeds10l" in the subject line and the info below in the > > message > > > Daytime telephone number (for fedex) > > Email address > > Delivery address > > > You are responsible for shipping > > USA is between $25 and $35 depending on E or W coast > > International can be scary: Canada about $90 and UK about $120 > > All other countries - call fedex for pricing and take off about 35% (our > > discount) > > >Lotterywinner will be notified on Wednesday (this wednesday) > I really don't wish to miss out - do we respond to your address, dbturner@islandco.com? I get: Your message has encountered delivery problems to the following recipient(s): dbturner@islandco.com Delivery failed 550 5.1.1 User unknown; rejecting No recipients were successfully delivered to. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:43:45 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <45bd51b8$0$672$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> winston19842005@yahoo.com wrote: > I really don't wish to miss out - do we respond to your address, > dbturner@islandco.com? Since Mr Turner is no longer in britain, you needd to remove the "b" from his name. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:39:33 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <45bd50bb$0$672$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> David Turner, Island Computers US Corp wrote: > International can be scary: Canada about $90 and UK about $120 Had FedEx raised rates since December ? Or is your $90 some maximum amount for Canada ? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:57:41 -0600 From: "Forster, Michael" Subject: RE: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <01cc01c74348$dec795cf$46146a8d@mcwcorp.net> I sent info once so am i in? -----Original Message----- From: "JF Mezei" To: "Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com" Sent: 01/28/07 7:54 PM Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery winston19842005@yahoo.com wrote: > I really don't wish to miss out - do we respond to your address,=20 > dbturner@islandco.com? Since Mr Turner is no longer in britain, you needd to remove the "b" = from=20 his name. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 20:19:46 -0800 From: tomarsin2015@comcast.net Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <1170044386.589021.162580@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups.com> Do you have to go with FEDEX? I have too much trouble with FEDEX. It would be easier for me to walk and pick it up then have FEDEX attempt to drop the item off!!! On Jan 28, 4:22 pm, "David Turner, Island Computers US Corp" wrote: > If you have already applied then don't send another entry > If you haven't then by all means send us an email including > > Email us with "free ds10l" in the subject line and the info below in the > message > > Daytime telephone number (for fedex) > Email address > Delivery address > > You are responsible for shipping > USA is between $25 and $35 depending on E or W coast > International can be scary: Canada about $90 and UK about $120 > All other countries - call fedex for pricing and take off about 35% (our > discount) > > Lottery winner will be notified on Wednesday (this wednesday) > > David ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 00:27:09 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: Another DS10L LOttery Message-ID: <45bd8615$0$6821$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Malcolm Dunnett wrote: > USPS Airmail Parcel Post to Canada would be a lot less than $90, probably > more like $30-40 and the receiver wouldn't get dinged utrageous customs > brokerage fees either. FedEx only charged $7 for the brokerage fees. (this used to be free, and is free for those who charge brokerage fees to their accounts). So if Mr Turner were to accept brokerage charges on his account, he could then bill us the 7% GST tax and pay Fed Ex the 7%. And we'd save the $7 fee. Canada Post charges $10 if I remember correctly for the customs brokerage. (+ GST). FedEx is also very reliable in terms of tracking and delivery time. With Fed Ex, one option you have is to check the tracking and as soon as it has cleared customers, you can call Fed Ex and pay the brokerage charges by credit card over the phone. this way, the package is delivered to destination without any need for the fed ex guy to pickup any money from you. Island is pretty good at emailing you the fed ex tracking number as soon as it has been issued. And you can post a letter on your door with the waybill number, authorizing FedEx to leave the package without signature if there is nobody there at the time of delivery. Note that the DS10s come in pretty big boxes that are considered "oversize" by Canada Post so the costs would be higher than just the "weight" fees. The ones to avoid are UPS which those ridiculous PBB Customs Robbers who invoice you later on, so at time of delivery, you have no idea what random charges PBB will decide to bill you on top of the simple 7% tax. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 13:57:03 -0600 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Emulex CS09 configuration help? Message-ID: In article , Alex Zorrilla writes: > Hey, all. > > We recently added some new hardware to our old MicroVAX 3900. As a > result, we need to reconfigure our Emulex CS09 to use a different CSR > address space on the Q-bus. The problem is, we have no documentation, > and the board itself has almost no jumpers. It almost certainly uses > some sort of onboard utility, but we do not know how to access it. I can almost help you. I don't recall the model number, but our Qbus Emulex controllers had an onboard ROM you had to execute code from. The program in the ROM changes the values in non-volatile RAM. But I don't know the address of the ROM. I can only verify that you really do need that documentation. Good luck. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 18:33:53 -0800 From: "Sue" Subject: Re: Excellent OpenVMS Pearl - Customer Testimonial - Saturn Electrohandels Message-ID: <1170038033.113145.172990@k78g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> It is indeed my dear friend Guenter. I also had the chance to meet the folks from Saturn and they were amazing. You know what I found out that for modern music you only need to record about 30 seconds of a song but for clasical music you need to record the entire piece of music. That is done because with clasical music you need to hear the entire piece of music to tell the diference between musicans and conductors. Since I am not very smart where this is concerned I was happy to learn this. sue On Jan 24, 4:09 am, "R.A.Omond" wrote: > Suewrote: > > Dear Distribution Lists, > > > It is truly my please to announce the availability of a wonderful > > customer testimonial from Saturn Electrohandel from Germany. Please > > visit the web site to watch the video or read a transcript. This > > customer has VMS running on Integrity Servers with 5 HP StorageWorks > > EVA with 9 terabytes of storage capacity. > > >http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/brochures/saturnNice! I know that store (Saturn in Cologne) very well. Been > there many times. > > Is that Guenter Kriebel in the film ? (Hallo Guenter ... es ist > lange her, gell ?) > > Roy Omond > Blue Bubble Ltd. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 14:05:52 -0600 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: FPGA VAX Message-ID: In article , Rich Alderson writes: > koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes: > >> In article , Stephen Hoffman writes: > >>> It would appear to be a VAX processor built using a field >>> programmable gate array, rather than with fully- or semi-custom >>> integrated circuitry. That's not going to be a small FPGA, either. :-) > >> At least one processor, which was almost a PDP-x (can't say which >> one, but certainly single digit), was implimented in FPGA in the >> 1990s. One off for only a $1M or so. > > I think you're thinking of the PDP-8/X, done by Neil Franklin. One off, but > he was giving away the VHDL for it. Parts would make it run about $1K, not > $1M. No, didn't know about that one. I can put my hands on the one I know about. There was more to it than just the chip, so the $1M wasn't soley to reprodude the architecure on the FPGA. But it did include ALL the work, from scratch. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:55:03 -0500 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: <45bd6205$0$49200$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Michael Kraemer wrote: > Arne Vajhøj schrieb: >> Dave Weatherall wrote: >> The discussion was about production systems. >> >> You don't just do things on those. >> >> And it does not matter if it VMS, Solaris, Linux or Windows. >> >> If it is for mixed usage, then it is another discussion. > > Define "production system". One used for production only. One that is tested and qualified with a very specific configuration and load. Optionally one where security software triggers an alarm if "unexpected files" show up on the system. > IIRC the OP wanted to know how long it would take > to have a VMS system which is usable in today's networked world of IT. The wording was: "But in reality, how long does it REALLY take to get a virgin system fully loaded with all the prerequisite stuff, configured, tested and ready to go into production without any more improvements being done to it ?" I read that as a real dedicated production system. But I can be wrong. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:52:01 -0500 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: <45bd6150$0$49200$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> Dave Weatherall wrote: > maybe this reflects the difference in our > experience in development on/use of VMS. Mine is engineering and > airborne software developement. I know nothing of commercial software > and the constraints there. The scenario I painted above is one of the > reaons why VMS is no longer strong in my area. The bulk of our s/w > development (the production activity) is now done on Solaris. Mainly > because we now use Rational Apex to do Ada as opposed to Assembler on > VMS using the toolset that I maintain. I rarely had the luxury of > seperate development and production machines. We had VAX and Alpha > when we changed to Alpha, two alphas while moving thro' AXP/VMS 1.5 > / 6.2 / 7.1 and something for the Y2K checks. > > In general, managing Dev/Prod on one machine was done with care and > logical naming but it was a relatifvely small task. Hence the line :- We agree that a huge easy available tool set is a good thing for a development system. Compare to what you get with a Linux install if you click everything in development tools. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:57:09 -0500 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: <45bd6283$0$49200$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> JF Mezei wrote: > VMS isn't *that* far from being a system perfectly usable in an office. > > You need Acrobat Reader > You need Open Office > You need Firefox/Firebird (coming soon). The last two are open source. If someone need them, they should start working on the port. > We just need to keep the pressure on the current owner of VMS to keep > VMS as a viable alternative to Linux, one which HP could market as a > fully supported solution for enterprise. I would not expect to see VMS as desktop system now a days. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:20:14 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: <45bd6855$0$5969$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Arne Vajh=F8j wrote: > I would not expect to see VMS as desktop system now a days. This is the wrong strategy. To get VMS back, you require VMS on desktops = for at least developpers. And you need to have some forward momentum in=20 business which can only be achieved by broadening VMS' reach. The goal isn't to get VMS 50% market share in the desktop. The goal is to= =20 grow VMS. And there is potential for growth. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 23:15:50 -0600 From: Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: In article <45bd6205$0$49200$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: > Michael Kraemer wrote: >> Arne Vajhøj schrieb: >>> Dave Weatherall wrote: >>> The discussion was about production systems. >>> >>> You don't just do things on those. >>> >>> And it does not matter if it VMS, Solaris, Linux or Windows. >>> >>> If it is for mixed usage, then it is another discussion. >> >> Define "production system". > > One used for production only. > > One that is tested and qualified with a very specific > configuration and load. For sites where security is important. One that contains production data, and thus one to which developers are denied all access on pain of firing. There are too many trick that can be played with looser rules. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 2007 05:46:45 GMT From: "Dave Weatherall" Subject: RE: How long to really setup a VMS system ? Message-ID: On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 14:47:02 UTC, "Main, Kerry" wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Dave Weatherall [mailto:djw-nothere@nospam.nohow] > > Sent: January 28, 2007 4:03 AM > > To: Info-VAX@Mvb.Saic.Com > > Subject: Re: How long to really setup a VMS system ? > > [snip...] > > > Wilm, Arne > > maybe this reflects the difference in our > > experience in development on/use of VMS. Mine is engineering and > > airborne software developement. I know nothing of commercial software > > and the constraints there. The scenario I painted above is one of the > > reaons why VMS is no longer strong in my area. The bulk of our s/w > > development (the production activity) is now done on Solaris. Mainly > > because we now use Rational Apex to do Ada as opposed to Assembler on > > VMS using the toolset that I maintain. I rarely had the luxury of > > seperate development and production machines. We had VAX and Alpha > > when we changed to Alpha, two alphas while moving thro' AXP/VMS 1.5 > > / 6.2 / 7.1 and something for the Y2K checks. > > > > In general, managing Dev/Prod on one machine was done with care and > > logical naming but it was a relatifvely small task. Hence the line :- > > > > > > the system. Are their exceptions? Sure. > > > > That cuts both ways. > > > > The big VMS machines and the big VMS jobs became thus, or were > > supported, by the little ones. The big job niche is still there (just) > > and that appears to be what HP have their attention on. The small area > > _was_ (in some areas still is) subject to the mistakes I originally > > commented on. System (or department) managers making it very difficult > > to use a system that was never particularly vulnerable to the things > > they used as excuses to keep their VMS systems closed. That niche is > > occupied by WIndows and Linux. We lose! > > > > Just a view from a different part of the dwindling VMS user/developer > > spectrum. > > > > e.g. IKEA still use VMS. Would it have been impossible for them to set > > up there machines to let employees do simple stuff. > > > > Mind you as Richard points out, the real problem with the development > > of a mortgage repayment program on the company machine would be the > > cost of the licenses. Unless you did it in Macro-32 :-) > > > > On the other side, I know system mangers who kept the system 'closed' > > on machines I would have described as development...The PC became the > > tool of choice. > > > > -- > > Cheers - Dave W. > > > > This is the classic argument between formal production systems > (Operations) and free wheeling developers who feel controls cramp their > "creativity". Hm! I don't remember making any such argument and certainly wouldn't make it now!! Kerry there may be truth in what you argue but it is not a reply to anything you've quoted from me unless I've expressed myself in a p*iss-poor fashion. I hope not. Maybe you've switched hobby-horses. Fair enough. > While "creativity" may have been in style in the distributed world, the > reality is that almost all med-large companies are now trying to > consolidate those servers back and fix all the "everyone has priv's in > prod" scenarios. > > Bottom line - while many people talk about the security issues > associated with the Internet, most security analysts will state > something like 50-60% of all security issues are caused by internal > issues. Imagine what a disgruntled developer could do who not only > understood the inner workings of the application code, but also had > elevated priv's in production. > > In addition, consolidation to fewer, but larger servers is absolutely > white hot right now as the average utilization of the mahjority of > Windows server in peak time is less than 15%, while UNIX servers are a > bit higher - in the neighbourhood of less than 20-25% in peak time. And > the biggest cost is the management, licensing, monitoring, monthly > patches and app re-certification etc - it is not the base HW costs. > > The down side to fewer, but larger servers is that you need more formal > control of these servers e.g. change control is critical because if > something screws up, then a lot more end users (and potentially > Customers) are impacted. > > There are also some mandatory regulatory controls kicking in now as well > ie. clear separation of roles and controls in the IT dept. > > Those who think developers should have elevated priv's in prod systems > are in a rapidly shrinking minority. > > Regards > > Kerry Main > Senior Consultant > HP Services Canada > Voice: 613-592-4660 > Fax: 613-591-4477 > kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom > (remove the DOT's and AT) > OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works. If you believe your tag line make sure your text matches!!! -- Cheers - (a slightly peeved) Dave W. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 13:58:52 -0600 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Kermit Large File Support Message-ID: In article <45b96660$0$49202$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: > Paul Sture wrote: >> According to the "VMS at 20" Book (1997), 64 bit system services came >> with V7.1 in December 1996. > > I am pretty sure that 7.0 FROM 1995 was 64 bit as well. > Depends on which system service. $QIO[W] was 64 bit clean from day 1 since all the parameters are passed via 64 bit registers. Higher levels, like RMS, got 64 bit APIs later. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 19:30:51 GMT From: "Malcolm Dunnett" Subject: Re: OpenSSL & OSU Message-ID: "Christoph Gartmann" wrote in message news:ephnh7$o9d$1@news.BelWue.DE... | The previous version of OpenSSL doesn't support SSL V3. The new Firefox | supports only SSL V3. IE7 does support older versions but the support has to be | explicitely enabled. This is why I want to upgrade SSL. I just downloaded Firefox 2 and tried loading an https page from my OSU server (built with an older OpenSSL). It worked fine. I turned off TLS 1.0 support in Firefox (so it only supports SSL 3) and tried again, still worked. I don't see the problem, what am I missing? What version are you linked against now? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:40:20 +0000 (UTC) From: gartmann@nonsense.immunbio.mpg.de (Christoph Gartmann) Subject: Re: OpenSSL & OSU Message-ID: In article , "Malcolm Dunnett" writes: >"Christoph Gartmann" wrote in message >news:ephnh7$o9d$1@news.BelWue.DE... > >| The previous version of OpenSSL doesn't support SSL V3. The new Firefox >| supports only SSL V3. IE7 does support older versions but the support has >to be >| explicitely enabled. This is why I want to upgrade SSL. > > I just downloaded Firefox 2 and tried loading an https page from my OSU >server (built with an older OpenSSL). It worked fine. I turned off TLS 1.0 >support in Firefox (so it only supports SSL 3) and tried again, still >worked. I don't see the problem, what am I missing? What version are you >linked against now? Version 0.96G, nothing special. Regards, Christoph Gartmann -- Max-Planck-Institut fuer Phone : +49-761-5108-464 Fax: -452 Immunbiologie Postfach 1169 Internet: gartmann@immunbio dot mpg dot de D-79011 Freiburg, Germany http://www.immunbio.mpg.de/home/menue.html ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 14:12:37 -0600 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: PL/I for Itanium Message-ID: <5hJpzsESDyZg@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <45bc22fb$0$49198$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>, =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= writes: > Michael Kraemer wrote: > > Java and C# have both passed C++/C for new development. Nobody is doing anything in C#, and very little in Java. You must be living in a different country. > There are also still significant VB6/VB.NET even though > C/C++ is probably bigger. > >> Too bad that PL/I was an overly complex language >> and for that reason not easy to implement on >> anything but mainframes and VAXen. C was simply >> "faster on the floor" for most other platforms >> in use nowadays. > > It is not obvious to me that it is technical reasons > that makes PL/I a mainframe and VMS/VAX thing. Since IBM invented PL/I I hardly think its a VAX/VMS thing. Of course, it could need a real file system. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Jan 2007 14:03:03 -0600 From: koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) Subject: Re: Purging across nodes deletes the only version of a file Message-ID: <9Gc0mwu87YDs@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article , martyn writes: > Hi Folks, > Anyone seen this behaviour before, if you do a purge of a file on a > remote node, where the logical name pointing at the file location is a > searchlist which contains the file location twice, then it deletes the > only version of the file. > > This is on VMS 7.3-2 & I'd be interested to know if anyone can reproduce > this on VMS 8.x IIRC PURGE is not supported across DECnet, but DELETE is. Or maybe that is out of date. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 2007 00:04:25 -0600 From: cornelius@encompasserve.org (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: Remember back before FTP? Need to x-fer a file via terminal protocol. Message-ID: <8A+ZsZCyBVPO@eisner.encompasserve.org> In article <45b90f88$0$6230$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, JF Mezei writes: > Reread the original post. The person does not have TCPIP on that machine, > hence the discussions about kermit, X/Y modem etc. $ MCR MIME can of course handle uuencoded data - assuming it's present without TCPIP services. Since it's present on Multinet machines, I would guess it's present on all (current) systems. Of course simulating a uuencoded mail message would be an interesting exercise. I suppose you could pull an existing email message apart and insert the uuencoded data in the proper place. -- George Cornelius cornelius()eisner.decus.org cornelius()mayo.edu > Kermit is your best bet. With the VAX in "server" mode, a PC client running > kermit can then perform a lot of operations, bulk data transfers with > wildcards, change directories etc (aka: FTP functionality and more) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Jan 2007 00:43:38 -0600 From: cornelius@encompasserve.org (George Cornelius) Subject: Re: Remember back before FTP? Need to x-fer a file via terminal protocol. Message-ID: I wrote: > Of course simulating a uuencoded mail message would be an interesting > exercise. I suppose you could pull an existing email message apart > and insert the uuencoded data in the proper place. I see that uuencoded mail messages seem to be extremely rare. BASE64 appears to be the common method of encoding binary data. A look at MIME.EXE does seem to show references to a routine called UUDECODE (under linux: strings mime.exe|egrep -i uu[de] ), so presumably it's supported. -- George Cornelius cornelius()eisner.decus.org cornelius()mayo.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 21:46:47 -0500 From: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Arne_Vajh=F8j?= Subject: Re: VMS in the HP hierarchy Message-ID: <45bd6014$0$49199$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> JF Mezei wrote: > Arne Vajhøj wrote: >> Could you list the companies where you have been in charge of >> 1000+ employees so that we can understand the experience >> leading to your conclusions ? > > I've worked for large companies with excessive overhead and layers of > VPs that were created a as a means of giving someone a promotion. That is not quite the same as being the one in charge. Even though many decisions made by senior management looks rather stupid seen from the ground level, then there may be good reasons for the decisions. Reasons that the ground people does not know about. They can also be totally clueless. The point is that you don't know. > And I have read many books that outline how this is a problem for large > corporations since it detaches the decision makers at the top from the > real information from the field. Most management books say that there are information problems (the reality gets twisted along the way) with too many levels. But the same books also say that there are information problems (the manager get too much information and the important is lost in the noise) with too few levels. I am not aware of any consensus that there are levels more optimal than current industry practice. > Any how, I seem to be the only one to question the necessity for so many > people between the head of VMS and Hurd. Everyone else seems quite happy > that the VMS group has no influence on HP strategic platform/management > decisions. I have no doubt that several readers would love to see the head of VMS report directly to Hurd. But it would be hard to justify objectively. Arne ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:17:00 -0500 From: JF Mezei Subject: Re: VMS in the HP hierarchy Message-ID: <45bd6793$0$5969$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com> Arne Vajh=F8j wrote: > I have no doubt that several readers would love to see the head of VMS > report directly to Hurd. >=20 > But it would be hard to justify objectively. If Hurd realised that VMS was not being leveraged properly and that he ha= d=20 been fed wrong information by his direct underlings with regards to the=20 potential for VMS, Hurd should want to have direct links with McQuaid in = order to get the right time of day and get VMS fixed so it delivers the = maximum potential/profits. In orther words, if Hurd realises that he is being sheltered from the rig= ht=20 information by his underlings, he should get that fixed so that corporate= =20 success has priority over individual's personal pet projects. Also, if we knew for sure that Hurd was well informed about VMS and that = he=20 approves the strategy that VMS has no future and should be left on life= =20 support to prevent rebellion, then we could focus our efford on convincin= g=20 Hurd otherwise. But because of the number of layers between VMS and Hurd,= =20 we have no way of knowing what Hurd has been told and what he really know= s,=20 nor whether he knows he is being misinformed by certain people. Consider Marcello's departure. While many are happy, one must wonder if i= t=20 was his boss who convinced his superiors that getting rid of Marcello was= a=20 good thing, or whether Hurd knew enough about Marcello to make an informe= d=20 decision on his own. Now, we don't have to ask question about ink because we know HP considers= =20 ink to be business critical and ink get priority and the ink management a= re=20 empowered to do what it takes to ensure success and growth of ink busin= ess. But in the case of VMS, we really do not know what HP's intentions are, n= ow=20 how much power Ann McQuaid has to grow VMS. Is her role simplu to admnist= er=20 policies set by higher management ? Or is her role to do what it takes to= =20 grow VMS and make it succesful ? If McQuaid reported to Hurd (or Livermore), we'd know it was a strategic = product and that McQuaid would be given the autonomy and power to ensure = VMS is marketd and grows and generate profits. By placing VMS so far down the hierarchy, one has to wonder if it has as = much importance as the department in charge of ipaq plastic covers. ------------------------------ End of INFO-VAX 2007.057 ************************