From: antispam@fricas.org   
      
   Arne Vajhøj  wrote:   
   > It would not make sense for Oracle to port if they expect   
   > customers to migrate away in a few years.   
   >   
   > And it would not make sense for customers to move to x86-64   
   > and migrate away in a few years.   
      
   Why not?  Succesful platform migration may take a lot of time.   
   When migration is done in incremental way important part is   
   increasing portability of source code.  During that production   
   runs on existing system, in this case VMS.  Assuming that x86-64   
   part is succesful, that is VSI customers can easily move   
   software to x86-64 VMS, it make sense to use x86-64 as intermedite   
   step.  Namely, one has gain on hardware side, that is ability to   
   retire old hardware and run on new one.  And move to x86-64 can   
   test some aspects of migration, before it is fully done.   
      
   Also, customer using Rdb now and migrationg to x86-64 may plan   
   migration off Rdb to a different database while staying on VMS.   
      
   OTOH, I would not expect much sense in platform choices.  Migration   
   off VMS may be triggered by retirement of VMS-proponent or promotion   
   of VMS-enemy.  There could be IT personel who wants to deal with   
   popular platforms and at some more or less random time management   
   may follow reccomendation given by IT personel.   
      
   --   
                                 Waldek Hebisch   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)