What ever happened to Tandem and NonStop OS 1964

HP has moved VMS to the Itanium, but the NSK project was cancelled. Both VMS and NSK are effectively on a "milk the cash cow" support level, a precursor to their ascendency into the Great Beyond of deceased operating systems. Neither OS gets any marketing support. Call HP and ask about NSK or VMS, you get a pitch on running Windows 2003. Tru64, the Unix variant for Alphas, has already been discontinued.

HP is in the process of dismantling all of their non x86 markets. Old time DEC types from the 10-20 large computer group days will recognize a familiar pattern, lots of talk about commitment and continued support, steady technical budget cuts, and little new development. The latest HP layoffs are rumored to be targeting the VMS engineering group, with talk of moving VMS support to India (makes sense, after all, only a handful use Itanium servers running VMS). I expect NSK would follow soon after.

I wouldn't expect either VMS or NSK to survive much past 2007. As it happens, found out today I will likely be ending all VMS support for our customers by next month. Kinda sad, after a 24 year run dating from the days of VMS 3. Jack Peachicken