XLINTITZ@DDATHD21.BITNET (Otto Titze, Kernphysik THD) (10/24/86)
Subject: DEC's future licence policy
I found the attached letter in one of my mailboxes and it
really alarmed me. As an old DECUS member one cannot be very
enthusiastic about all this changes in DEC policies one could
observe in the recent past.
Does anybody know more about this matter or about reactions
in the DEC US Users community about these kind of DEC plans?
Otto Titze
Kernphysik THD, Darmstadt, Germany
(DEC user for more than 15 years and active DECUS member)
-----------------(the mail:)---------------------------
DECUS US Fall 86 Symposium San Francisco
(Part of a trip report from a German DECUS member)
----------------------------------------
The following is an exerpt from my San Francisco trip report,
translated to something like English.
On Monday in one of the sessions the new DEC licensing policy
was announced by a (unknown) lady from DEC. This was nearly not
noticed by the public, so an artcile was pusblished in UPDATE.DAILY
and the session was repeated on Thursday, where there was a larger
attendence and very sharp reactions. The situation was several times
compared to the JUPITER disaster.
Following details were announced:
1. SW licences don't go with the HW anymore and they don't belong
to a specific person or instition. When selling HW the SW won't
go with it, i.e. when buying refurbished equipment you will have
to buy the SW separately.
2. Licences can't be moved to other systems, they are related to
a very specific system. If you sell such a system, you'll end up
with a license for SW which you are not allowed to run on any system.
3. In former times on upgrades you only would have to pay the
difference of the two license fees. In the future on any upgrade
you'll have to pay the price for the full new licenses, except for
so called 'in-cpu-upgrades', which, however, are not clearly
defined and which are definitely not all upgrades which can be
done in the field by just changing or adding some modules.
4. The new policy is valid for all HW and all SW except for OEMs
and PC-systems.
5. Until the end of this year a case-by-case decision may be
negotiated with DEC. As of January 1, 1987, the new policy will be
in place with no exceptions.
As I said, the reactions were very strong and the whole athmosphere
was pretty much like in the Jupiter days.
In the following I'll give some examples from the discussions:
1. It might be worthwhile to re-check any plans for upgrades and to
delay them, especially if it's possible to skip minor updates.
2. It's a big help for IBM salesmen, especially after Jupiter.
Now DEC has pissed (sorry) us twice. They tried to rebuild
lost confidence, now they have blown it all.
3. Companies should buy DEC equipment and lease it to customers
( Question (kidding): 'Wouldn't that be a good
new service from DECUS for its members?)
4. DEC has become a big company by massive support from the
government. Now government systems are, because of lack of money,
in an extremely serious situation.
5. What about old systems, where one only wants or only is able
to run old SW versions?
6. DEC is already pretty expensive. In the future they'll hardly
be able to compete with other vendors. Great for IBM.
(This was mentioned several times)
7. DEC used to have the reputation of a good engineering company.
This reputation was lost after the Jupiter disaster, the Venus
being late and the lack of good peripherals (price and performance).
Now DEC tries to become at least a good marketing company (like IBM?).
8. The legal implications are not clear. Is it possible to change the
policy also for old systems, which were bought under the knowledge
or assumption that it would be possible to use the license later
for another system or to just pay the difference for an upgrade or
e.g. to be able to sell the system after some time for a good price.
(I'm personally looking forward to that discussion here in Europe
and I bet that DEC will have a very hard time here in Germany).
9. The attitude of DEC is very much like their attitude in the
BI-bus licensing.
10. What about systems which e.g. have been assembled from modules or
from different parts from different systems by the customer himself?
(Sometimes this is the only way to get a computer, namely by just
stating to buy spare parts!). They won't have a DEC system-serial-
number (which is NOT the cpu serial number) and thereby not eligable
for a SW license.
Most of the questions could not be answered by the attending DEC managers.
It looked like that nobody really was informed about the details or the
consequences of the decision. It was not even possible to find out
WHOSE decision this was and WHY (the hell) it was taken. It can only
be supposed that it was done in order to attack 3rd party vendors,
brokers and the refurbished systems market. It is likely to attack
and to hurt DEC themselves.
In the US the various SIGs will discuss the matter in the near future.
They'll submit info to the Board which then will discuss it with DEC.
I strongly recommend that it is sorted out immediately what the plans
for Europe are. I guess that DEC will try to implement it worldwide
(even in case they would pstpone it for now in Europe, they'll try
to 'harmonize' their policies later). Dependent on that we should
define our level of activity. In any case, any input or criticism
we have should be forwarded to our friends in the US.
Please feel free to use this memo for whatever you want...
Best regards,
Ralfjeff@necntc.NEC.COM (Jeff Janock) (10/24/86)
In article <8610240539.AA15262@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> XLINTITZ@DDATHD21.BITNET (Otto Titze, Kernphysik THD) writes: >Subject: DEC's future licence policy > >I found the attached letter in one of my mailboxes and it >really alarmed me. As an old DECUS member one cannot be very >enthusiastic about all this changes in DEC policies one could >observe in the recent past. > >Does anybody know more about this matter or about reactions >in the DEC US Users community about these kind of DEC plans? > >Otto Titze >Kernphysik THD, Darmstadt, Germany >(DEC user for more than 15 years and active DECUS member) We have just finished getting hasseled by DEC on many of the points covered in the artilce I am following up to. I would like to relate our experience with DEC regarding the new licence policy. Purchased in March and arrived in September, ONE new VAX 8300. This machine is to replace an existing (barely) VAX 11/730. Well, obviously, this is a good deal MIP wise; but dealing with DEC and the logistics involved to transfer all software to the new machine was insane. To make this short, (if anyone is interested in the entire saga, send me e-mail...) this is how the transfers took place: products involved: VMS, Fortran, Pascal, C, LISP, DECnet, PSI - All licences were transfered to the new machine using this formula: Current cost of licence for the new target machine (discounted at your current discount rate if elegible) - [MINUS] Current cost of licence for the old machine (discounted at your current discount rate if elegible) = [EQUALS] NEW COST FOR LICENCE TRANSFER!! in our case of going up to a larger VAX (and who wants to downgrade?), this worked out fairly well, except for PSI. We paid several times the current price for the original licence but the above formula held fast. My local sales rep was in a tizzy over this one 'cause he could not find anyone to commit to the policy with several weeks. I do not have the persons name in DEC responsible for setting this up, but I am aware that this will be a problem for DEC in the time to come. Regards, -- Jeff Janock NEC Electronics Inc. One Natick Executive Park Natick, Massachusetts 01760 +1 617 655 8833 maybe: jeff@necntc.nec.com (within uucp) should work: jeff@necntc.UUCP or if need be: {decvax | pyramid | talcott }!necntc!jeff {ihnp4!mirror | harvard!adelie }!necntc!jeff gatech!gt-eedsp!necntc!jeff