ken@CIT-HAMLET.ARPA (01/22/86)
The following excerpts of a letter from DEC dated January 10 should
put some light on the rumors running around about them dropping VS100
support:
Dear VAXstation 100 Customer:
Digital regrets to inform you that we plan to retire software and
services on VS100 and VDS (VAXstation Display Services). This means
that effective immediately, we will no longer sell the product and
are planning the phase out of our service contracts. Service
contracts for the installed base are not renewable.
(paragraph about migration, or lack thereof, ommitted)
Your satisfaction with Digital and its products is of primary
importance. Digital is proud to have you as a customer and looks
forward to working with you in providing system solutions for
your business.
Does anyone know exactly how many of these beasties Wigital has sold?
(How many people get the screws?) Needless to say, we are somewhat
"displeased" with their decision to discontinue support on such new
hardware.
Ken AdelmanWOLF@BBNG.ARPA (Jerry Wolf) (01/22/86)
Yes, we too received DEC's "Dear John" letter re the VS100. We have two, and neither we nor our client, for whom we're building a system, are happy about software support being terminated. (Field service support for the hardware will continue to be available "for years", I was told.) DEC's VS100 product manager declined to tell me how many they'd sold, only that the VS100 was a "very disappointing" product, and that it simply wasn't practical to continue its support (much less further development) in the light of its being overtaken by the workstation (i.e., Microvax) technology happening at DEC and elsewhere. Their support for the VS100 under VMS will close down in about 18 months, when the last software support contract runs out (ours runs only til the end of CY 1986). After that, they say, they'll give the VSTA sources to DECUS -- both the V1.1 that we all have now and their next version, which they'd been working on before the ax fell and which will never be released as a DEC product. The V2 software contains "performance enhancements", they say, but I don't imagine very many customers would wish to deal with an incompletely implemented/tested? revision of the support software.