From: bruce@ais.com (Bruce C. Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: DEC bets the company on NT?  WRONG!
Date: 8 Jan 93 11:06:01 GMT
Organization: Applied Information Systems, Chapel Hill, NC

In article <1993Jan7.201659.7143@gw.wmich.edu>, x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:
> In article <1993Jan7.222909.20160@grebyn.com>, mfraioli@grebyn.com (Marc Fraioli) writes:
>> In article <1993Jan7.063028.14772@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>>that represents a leap ahead in usability, said Microsoft officials and
>>>
>>>Digital is literally betting their company on Windows NT, for if NT doesn't
>>>fly, then neither does Alpha, and, as a Digital spokesman said: "Alpha
>>>is not a part of Digital -- Digital is a part of Alpha." The company intends
>>>to license any and all parts of their Alpha technology to all comers,
>>>hoping to make it an industry standard. If they succeed, you can kiss
>>>UNIX good-bye, except as a Macintosh-like niche player -- Windows NT is
>>>that good.
>>>
>> This is all one of the biggest loads of crap I have ever seen.  Just
>> today I attended Digital's Open Systems Open House in Alexandria, VA,
>> where the Alpha processor was the star of the show.  Yes, NT was demoed
>> at the show, and yes, there was significant interest.  However, it was
>> only shown on one Alpha machine (it was running on several of DEC's 486
>> machines), and the Alpha demo was running 28 copies of Solitaire, and no
>> one was allowed to touch the machine (the keyboard and mouse were locked
>> in a cabinet under the table).  Anyone want to guess why?  The Alpha
>> machines running VMS and Unix were readily available for anyone to poke
>> at as they wished.  Could it be that NT is embarassingly unstable?
>> Further, Digital is in no way "betting the company on NT".  Of the seven
>> models of Alpha-based machines they were showing, NT runs on only one of
>> them, the low-end EISA bus machine.  All other Alpha models use DEC's
>> TurboChannel bus, and NT DOES NOT RUN ON THEM.  
> Speaking as someone who has a rather intimate familiarity with
> DEC (Digital) the thought of DEC betting everything on their PC running
> NT is sickening.  It is simply untrue.  As was pointed out, only the
> Alpha PC (keyword PC) will be running NT.  The other DEC Alpha based
> computers will (again, as said before) running VMS.  VMS is an 
> excellent operating system and there are VMS like OS's from DEC that
> are REAL TIME OS's.  

This is also misleading.  The Alpha will be running both VMS (available
today in an end-user version) and OSF/1 (Unix), which will be availble
shortly -- in about the time frame of OS/2 V2.1.  There is a pre-release
version of OSF/1 available now, if you don't mind running a beta version.

I would expect the VMS and Unix markets on Alpha to be larger than the
NT market on Alpha for at least a year or two, because there has been
much more interest for the new machine in the VMS and Unix markets than
has been apparent in the fledgling NT market.  What happens after that
is anybody's guess, it depends on how well NT plays on Intel platforms
or whether it is as out of tune as Symphony when it is released (anybody
remember _that_ hyped product ... you never hear anything about it any
more, but at the time it was going to take over the world).

In any event, one of the biggest issues in which systems run on which
Alpha platforms is the effort of writing device drivers.  With three
independent operating systems, numerous hardware platforms with
different types of devices plugged into them, and lots of layered
products that all have to be ported into these environments, DEC has
their hands full.  They may decide not to support some combinations
for purely marketing reasons, but I think it's clear that at the moment
the biggest single issue is that they simply don't have time to do
everything.

> 	I am also aware that many people in DEC are very displeased with
> Microsoft concerning NT.  Their Alpha based PC which could have been
> a MAJOR player in the PC market is sitting there waiting for an OS that
> Microsoft said would (originally) be out in early 1992 and now looks
> like it won't be out until September.

I'm sure that DEC is less than pleased with this state of affairs,
but I think it's also clear that at the moment, NT on the Alpha would
very much of a bit player in the Alpha world even if it were available.

In any event DEC won't be sitting on their hands while waiting for
Intel's Pentium.  I don't expect that todays Alphas will be the ones
that will be compared to the Pentium by anyone except the Intel
marketing department (hint).

> 	Alpha is very important to DEC but believing that DEC is part
> of Alpha is nonsense and the thought that NT will be running on
> even most of the alpha based computers is simply wrong.

Right now DEC is pretty much the sole supplier for Alpha hardware (there
are a few places starting to build their own machines with the chip, but
DEC holds most of what market there is right now).  They _say_ that they
would like for Alpha to become larger than DEC (sort of the way that
the 80x86 market is larger than Intel).  Whether that will happen and
how much they really want that to happen are open questions at the moment.

As for NT on the Alpha PC's (which, it should be noted, have NOT been
announced yet ... only some workstation-class and server/multiuser-class
Alpha machines are shipping), it's interesting to see that a lot of the
VMS community is VERY insistent that they want to be able to run VMS on
it.  I would expect that the Unix community will join them.  If NT doesn't
take off on Alpha REAL soon, DEC would be foolish to ignore such desires,
and NT might not be a majority player in the Alpha market even on the
Alpha PC (!).

As I've said before, I'm _VERY_ skeptical about the near-term prospects
of NT on non-Intel platforms.  It may become significant eventually, but
that will depend on how well it's accepted on the PC.

Bruce C. Wright