I am reposting this here as the LinkedIn.com group page is not globally accessible to everyone.

Well, one member of the OpenVMS Community, Colin Butcher of XDelta in the UK, has an idea:

"I'm not sure that HP knows just how big the OpenVMS customer base really is. Most OpenVMS systems out there today are mission-critical on one form or another and because the systems "just work", they tend not to get much attention. They also tend to run very specific applications (often bespoke in one way or another), be fairly static over time and have risk averse owners. One consequence of all that is that OpenVMS has a fairly low profile, even within the organisations that rely on it.

The revised roadmap announcement is likely to get quite a lot of attention within such companies, now that it's happened. So, if this badly affects your business and its future plans, why not get your board level people to talk directly to HP at board level and explain why it's bad for your business and for HP's business."

So, have a discussion with your senior management about this impact this is having on your business and how they might be able to have a discussion with people on your company's board! Find a way to get more discussion going from all angles.

After posting this initially I had a conversation with a colleague, Bob Gezelter. He presents another tack on the HP OpenVMS Poulson Fiasco, is HP a reliable partner for enterprise computing? Here is his letter to HP on this subject.

Bill.