re: Vladimir
>Is John (Gillings) still here ?
Well, since you asked... yes and no. For now, yes, but I've also been selected in the latest round of Work Force Reduction (WFR). My last day with HP is 20th October.
I am also "parting amicably" from HP, and that's NOT intended to be sarcastic. Mr Hurd is following a strategy of reducing costs by restructuring the workforce. I'm not sure how or why management select particular individuals, that's not really relevant. The same thing is happening in most large corporations, and there's not a lot of point in complaining about it. Just accept what's happening and move on.
In the long term this should really be seen as a GOOD thing for OpenVMS. Consider that most of us in engineering and services are getting fairly old! Where are the young replacements for the future? Although it's called "WFR" it really isn't, as every person who leaves from Nashua or Sydney is replaced by *several* people in the new call centres and engineering hubs. These are young, keen graduates, ready and able to take on the maintenance and development OpenVMS products.
Thus the population of OpenVMS service and development engineers is actually INCREASING, and the average age is coming down. This is the future. Granted they don't (yet) have the experience that Hoff and myself have gathered over the decades, but they won't take very long to get up to speed. Look at Guy Peleg! He was only with HP for what, 6 years? He's younger than my oldest child, and look what he's achieved. In effect, he's been replaced by maybe SEVEN people just like him 6 years ago. Even if each of them is only HALF as good as Guy, that's still a huge long term benefit.
The corporation sees that they get more "bang for the buck" by hiring several new graduates than retaining one of us old guys. The last thing you, as customers want to see is for OpenVMS engineering to stagnate, and 5-10 years from now be completely vacated when everyone retires. This way it's far more likely there will be engineers into the future.
What YOU can do as customers is support the product by purchasing service contracts. Without revenue, the product WILL die. That's a simple economic fact. So, USE your contract. Log cases to ask advice and report issues. More cases mean more engineers needed to handle them. You should also feed back any complaints or criticisms of the quality of products or service you receive, but, MORE IMPORTANTLY, also feed back any positives or praise for individuals who give good service.
The biggest threat to OpenVMS is silence from customers. Make your voices and opinions heard.
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