The sessions I attended were mainly centred on OpenVMS and Integrity. It was by no means equal to the boot camp, but the overall quality of the sessions was very good. What was new this year was that the VMS presentations by HP employees were all done by the engineers out of Bangalore, with the exception of Keith Parris. As such, this was a good opportunity to get a feel for what drives the VMS engineering team in Bangalore, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I am aware that there is a lot of unrest about the recent move of much of the remainder of VMS engineering and management to India, and I had my doubts about this myself. The Indian engineers have managed to allay my doubts and convince me that they are as passionate about VMS as we are. Moreover, and this is something that I believe HP management hasn't managed to get across properly, many of the VMS engineers in India are very experienced and have been involved with VMS since the Digital days.

During the sessions they presented, as well as in private meetings I had with them, the Indian engineers came across as being very eager to make improvements to VMS, and to keep delivering the consistent level of quality that we are all used to. They were very approachable, and actively solicited input from the attendees as to what improvements customers would like to see in the areas they talked about in their sessions.

One of the interesting points that came up during the SIG meeting was the question of whether or not to release version 8.4 earlier than the delayed release of the new Tukwila processors and do a separate hardware release for Tukwila later (an 8.4-1H1). HP was still debating this issue internally, and would like to know how the VMS user community felt about this idea. A show of hands made clear that an overwhelming majority was in favor of separating the 8.4 software improvements (clusters over IP and six-member shadow sets among other things) from the Tukwila hardware support.

Another interesting discussion during the SIG meeting was about the possibility of resuming the tradition of the VMS boot camps. The current idea seems to be that the Connect user organization would be the organizer of these events (much like the old DECUS symposia), but that its format would remain unchanged, with a lot of contributions from VMS engineering and partners, as well as fun evenings like the VMS Magic evenings and the awards dinner. The idea is that these events should take place in New England, where VMS's roots lie.

Indications are the advocacy web site for OpenVMS will return. The web site allows the VMS community to request VMS features and vote on the desirability of requested features.

A very pleasant surprise was the presence of Sue Skonetski, and her daughter Amanda. Although no longer employed by HP, Sue was at the Tech Forum on behalf of two HP partners: e-Cube Systems (software development tools, also on VMS) and Trilogy Solutions (hardware leasing). Sue's name has become practically synonymous with VMS and it wouldn't have been the same without her. E-Cube organized a raffle with VMS-related items to be won and Trilogy sponsored a party that was pretty much a gathering of VMS-minded people. Sue was also active during the SIG meeting, reminding people to use the microphone, please.

Unfortunately, VMS's visibility during the general portion of the event was pretty low. VMS was not mentioned in any of the general sessions' slides, and when it was mentioned by Ann Livermore during the opening session - "and for those of you still running OpenVMS" - it could have been done a lot better. Also, there was no VMS visibility in the HP booth in the expo hall. The VMS management team agreed that this needs to be improved.

In all, even though this was not purely a VMS-event, and though I would have liked to see more VMS-related sessions, I feel that attending the forum was worth the time and money spent. Despite VMS's low visibility in the HP booth, the VMS stealth marketing performed by partners and clients was effective enough that I didn't encounter anyone who hadn't heard of VMS or didn't know what it was, with the exception of someone in the McAfee booth. When I told her I didn't need their product, because there had never been a virus for the VMS operating system, she told me to wait until it had been around a bit longer. And that is exactly what I intend to do. I will hang in there, and wait until VMS has been around a lot longer than it has been already.

Camiel Vanderhoeven
Camicom