Snake Oil

[Frederick M. Avolio]

Someone in Ultrix Product Management asked me to submit this for him.
The rest of this is the submission.  Fred
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What Ken Olsen REALLY said in the article was that the way that people market
UNIX based systems as the cure-all for everything was like snake-oil salesmen
selling "cure-alls" to people who really needed a doctor.  Any one who has
been around most current versions of UNIX operating systems knows that at
this stage in its development the UNIX OS lacks things that are necessary in
various markets.  It is not to say that UNIX operating systems will never
have them, but that the product as a commercial operating system has to
mature.
 
Digital has always been active on standards committees, and in implementing 
these standards as they evolve.  Sometimes Digital has needed a solution before
the standard is ready, therefore we invent an "internal standard" until the
formal standard is of product quality.  Sometimes we use defacto standards
as a place holder until better systems emerge.
 
Digital has put as much (or more) effort into promoting the POSIX standard
as anyone.  This would be an odd thing if our chief officer was "against
standards".
 
As to Digital supporting ULTRIX, I recently went to an internal meeting of
top-level Digital Executives where the top three speakers (Ken Olsen, and two
senior V.P.s) said in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that we have:
 
	One Company, One Architecture and TWO Operating Systems
 
VMS and ULTRIX.  These operating systems will be sold on an EQUAL basis
(Ken's OWN WORDS to these top-level Digital executives).  Yes, it is a large
company, and yes, there are still pockets of resistance.  In today's Digital,
however, you [meaning Digital employees]  had better keep those thoughts of
resistance to yourself.
 
Jon Hall
ULTRIX Worksystems Product Management