THIS STORY IS BASED ON PEOPLE GETTING LAID OFF
on
Ixnay WinNT on Alpha
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· Score: 1
What part of "I just got laid off" are you missing? While I'm not the source of this story, I was in the room when I was told my job was gone and that there would be NO MORE ALPHA NT development.
I don't care who Jay Perlow is... I'm looking for a new job.
The statements about what could and couldn't be said were so vague - they basically said "don't call all the customers", and they didn't hand out any "guidelines for confidentiality" or anything...
So, yeah, the only people being asked to stay on are finishing NT4 SP6. Most of the contractors aren't reporting unless they're coming in to use the internal job search facilities. The only folks still at MS are FTE's collecting the equipment that was signed out to them for use at MS, so they will get their severence package. Rumor has it that intel and MS are scavenging 64 bit developers.. they'll probably back a van up to the front door of the site and hire people on the way out the door.
Yesterday the whole site was a ghost town and MS still hadn't responded to the news. I have yet to see an official statement by MS internally or externally. Alpha on NT is dead, everyone working on Alpha Win2K 32 AND 64 has nothing more to do. Most of the contractors who were co-located at MS have already handed in their credentials and are looking for work.
well, uhm... were you in the room for the announcement? Where are you getting your information? What then would be the reason that all the Compaq 64 bit developers packed their belongings and left the MS campus on Friday?
The statement was that there will be no "Alpha NT revisions after NT 4 SP6". Are you heading for the unemployment office?
NT was the love child of David Cutler who did the original development for NT while he was working at Digital. When Digital killed the product Cutler took the idea to MS. Digital supported NT because it was a volume opporunity for Alpha (which they subsequently mismanaged).
For more information on current alpha processor specs see: http://www.alpha-processor.com/
This generation of chips was demoed at 1Ghz in June.
The current benchmarks are more like 5 times faster than the xeon, not 3 times faster than the celeron.
Having watched Digital through the merger and seen Compaq make a series of poor business decisions related to the technology currently shipping and under development at Digital and the potential market share gain in niches where they had no presence, this move was no surprise.
With no production merced chips due for months and months, and no Alpha Win2K who is going to develop the user applications for Win64 and on what? The DECWest team was developing the Win64 VC++ compiler on the Alpha Win2K platform, which is dead now. Compaq has just shot MS in the head and themselves in the market.
Digital became easy prey for the recent Compaq takeover after the company took a serious nose dive following the first attempted "merger". While I wouldn't want to mention names, I can't help but think that the $300 million golden parachute that Bob Palmer jumped out of Digital with could have been quite an incentive for driving the company into the ground - had he known in advance that he would be so rewarded.
This latest decision is just one of many that hilight Compaq's total misunderstanding of computer technology and what a "technology leader" is. By killing the undernourished Digital products, some of which sold themselves with no advertising *at all*, Compaq has proven that they are not a "technology" company at all. They merely sell (or kill) what other, better companies innovate. They have no respect for high end, high speed advanced technologies or the kind of investment that produced the axiom: "if you can afford it, buy Digital Alpha.. if you can't, buy Dell or HP".
Mark Minasi wrote about Digital Cluster for NT. A clustering product that was the code base for MSCS. DCNT was done, paid for. It was a high availability 2 node cluster that ran on standard NT and supported SQL, Oracle, Netscape Server, IIS, MCIS and Network Interface failover to name a few. It was a simple, small but effective entry level clustering product. This product could have been given away FREE as and incentive to companies to buy 2 Compaq servers (it runs well even on low end cheap boxes) with standard NT while providing a vehicle for migration to MS Enterprise server and MSCS. This product was one of the first killed by Compaq after the merger. When a company totally *ignores* an opportunity to leverage server sales FREE, they are STUPID.
In the industry, there has never been any question which platform was better. Alpha has always been superior in performance, but never price. This isn't a fault in the technology, but the management who could not come up with a way to lower chip costs (like using 3rd party OEMs, such as API and finding production partners). It has been nearly 2 years since Digital produced their last processor, tied up in litigation with Intel - they were unable to go to market until just the last few months with a new line of processors: the EV6. In benchmark tests the new Alpha chips outperformed the xeon by 5 to 1. The ES40 (quad EV6) was the target platform for Win64, and would have made MS a solid contender in the enterprise. Alpha was the only real 64bit platform to develop and test on, and Compaq would have beat intel to the market on 64bit Win2K by anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. The opportunity was tremendous, the market was wide open, everyone in NT Alpha was psyched to be on top again - there was no avoiding it... or so it seemed.
So, how do IT directors feel about Compaq now that they have backpeddled on their initial promises that they would support NT on Alpha? Betrayed, decieved.. and certain that Sun, HPUX and Dell's Linux offerings will get much more favorable attention in the future. Business won't soon forget being abandoned by Compaq and Wall Street Analysts are sure to notice that the decisions made by Compaq since the merger are either grossly stupid, or circumstantial evidence of collusion to monopolize the industry around the MS operating system and the Intel processor platform.
We're sad to see Alpha being killed off like this. Technology that good deserved better, and so did the user community.
Well, that would be really cool... except ALL THE ENGINEERS ARE BEING LAID OFF. There is no one at DECWest, the place is a ghost town. The same engineers do the work for 32 and 64 bit and the porting team is now unemployed. Most of them were contractors who were told they didn't have to report for work, that the project was DEAD.
The statement "we will not be supporting NT on Alpha, the last revision will be NT4 SP6" is the one you should pay attention to.
Jim Finlaw is just treading water, trying to ease the hysteria this decision will cause in the market. A whole lot of companies planned to buy the new Alpha DS10's and DS20's to run Win2K and then be streamlined and ready for 32 to 64 bit conversion that Compaq swore up and down would happen. Even more companies were overjoyed that Win64 would run on their old Alpha EV5's.
Compaq is not supporting NT on Alpha, at all. Development has ceased, engineering has left the building. They are going with Merced because it's cheap, even though it doesn't exist yet.
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What part of "I just got laid off" are you missing? While I'm not the source of this story, I was in the room when I was told my job was gone and that there would be NO MORE ALPHA NT development.
I don't care who Jay Perlow is... I'm looking for a new job.
I was there.
I'm unemployed.
The only people working are finishing NT4 SP6.
The statements about what could and couldn't be said were so vague - they basically said "don't call all the customers", and they didn't hand out any "guidelines for confidentiality" or anything...
So, yeah, the only people being asked to stay on are finishing NT4 SP6. Most of the contractors aren't reporting unless they're coming in to use the internal job search facilities. The only folks still at MS are FTE's collecting the equipment that was signed out to them for use at MS, so they will get their severence package. Rumor has it that intel and MS are scavenging 64 bit developers.. they'll probably back a van up to the front door of the site and hire people on the way out the door.
Yesterday the whole site was a ghost town and MS still hadn't responded to the news. I have yet to see an official statement by MS internally or externally. Alpha on NT is dead, everyone working on Alpha Win2K 32 AND 64 has nothing more to do. Most of the contractors who were co-located at MS have already handed in their credentials and are looking for work.
well, uhm... were you in the room for the announcement? Where are you getting your information? What then would be the reason that all the Compaq 64 bit developers packed their belongings and left the MS campus on Friday?
The statement was that there will be no "Alpha NT revisions after NT 4 SP6". Are you heading for the unemployment office?
NT was the love child of David Cutler who did the original development for NT while he was working at Digital. When Digital killed the product Cutler took the idea to MS. Digital supported NT because it was a volume opporunity for Alpha (which they subsequently mismanaged).
For more information on current alpha processor specs see:
http://www.alpha-processor.com/
This generation of chips was demoed at 1Ghz in June.
The current benchmarks are more like 5 times faster than the xeon, not 3 times faster than the celeron.
Having watched Digital through the merger and seen Compaq make a series of poor business decisions related to the technology currently shipping and under development at Digital and the potential market share gain in niches where they had no presence, this move was no surprise.
With no production merced chips due for months and months, and no Alpha Win2K who is going to develop the user applications for Win64 and on what? The DECWest team was developing the Win64 VC++ compiler on the Alpha Win2K platform, which is dead now. Compaq has just shot MS in the head and themselves in the market.
Digital became easy prey for the recent Compaq takeover after the company took a serious nose dive following the first attempted "merger". While I wouldn't want to mention names, I can't help but think that the $300 million golden parachute that Bob Palmer jumped out of Digital with could have been quite an incentive for driving the company into the ground - had he known in advance that he would be so rewarded.
This latest decision is just one of many that hilight Compaq's total misunderstanding of computer technology and what a "technology leader" is. By killing the undernourished Digital products, some of which sold themselves with no advertising *at all*, Compaq has proven that they are not a "technology" company at all. They merely sell (or kill) what other, better companies innovate. They have no respect for high end, high speed advanced technologies or the kind of investment that produced the axiom: "if you can afford it, buy Digital Alpha.. if you can't, buy Dell or HP".
Mark Minasi wrote about Digital Cluster for NT. A clustering product that was the code base for MSCS. DCNT was done, paid for. It was a high availability 2 node cluster that ran on standard NT and supported SQL, Oracle, Netscape Server, IIS, MCIS and Network Interface failover to name a few. It was a simple, small but effective entry level clustering product. This product could have been given away FREE as and incentive to companies to buy 2 Compaq servers (it runs well even on low end cheap boxes) with standard NT while providing a vehicle for migration to MS Enterprise server and MSCS. This product was one of the first killed by Compaq after the merger. When a company totally *ignores* an opportunity to leverage server sales FREE, they are STUPID.
In the industry, there has never been any question which platform was better. Alpha has always been superior in performance, but never price. This isn't a fault in the technology, but the management who could not come up with a way to lower chip costs (like using 3rd party OEMs, such as API and finding production partners). It has been nearly 2 years since Digital produced their last processor, tied up in litigation with Intel - they were unable to go to market until just the last few months with a new line of processors: the EV6. In benchmark tests the new Alpha chips outperformed the xeon by 5 to 1. The ES40 (quad EV6) was the target platform for Win64, and would have made MS a solid contender in the enterprise. Alpha was the only real 64bit platform to develop and test on, and Compaq would have beat intel to the market on 64bit Win2K by anywhere from 3 months to 3 years. The opportunity was tremendous, the market was wide open, everyone in NT Alpha was psyched to be on top again - there was no avoiding it... or so it seemed.
So, how do IT directors feel about Compaq now that they have backpeddled on their initial promises that they would support NT on Alpha? Betrayed, decieved.. and certain that Sun, HPUX and Dell's Linux offerings will get much more favorable attention in the future. Business won't soon forget being abandoned by Compaq and Wall Street Analysts are sure to notice that the decisions made by Compaq since the merger are either grossly stupid, or circumstantial evidence of collusion to monopolize the industry around the MS operating system and the Intel processor platform.
We're sad to see Alpha being killed off like this. Technology that good deserved better, and so did the user community.
Boooooo!
Well, that would be really cool... except ALL THE ENGINEERS ARE BEING LAID OFF. There is no one at DECWest, the place is a ghost town. The same engineers do the work for 32 and 64 bit and the porting team is now unemployed. Most of them were contractors who were told they didn't have to report for work, that the project was DEAD.
The statement "we will not be supporting NT on Alpha, the last revision will be NT4 SP6" is the one you should pay attention to.
Jim Finlaw is just treading water, trying to ease the hysteria this decision will cause in the market. A whole lot of companies planned to buy the new Alpha DS10's and DS20's to run Win2K and then be streamlined and ready for 32 to 64 bit conversion that Compaq swore up and down would happen. Even more companies were overjoyed that Win64 would run on their old Alpha EV5's.
Compaq is not supporting NT on Alpha, at all. Development has ceased, engineering has left the building. They are going with Merced because it's cheap, even though it doesn't exist yet.