DEC denies rumors that a 1988 project investigating the feasibility of VMS-on-Intel was killed by research and advanced development chief Bob Supnik as a slap to Dave Cutler (CI No 3,281). In any case Cutler, who later jumped ship to Microsoft Corp to become Windows NT meister, was still with the company at that time. DEC told us last week it is once again investigating porting VMS to Intel Corp’s IA-64, although observers say there is so much hardware-dependent functionality in VMS they doubt its feasibility. Meantime a recent IDC study showed that while existing Unix, AS/400 and VMS users are buying more of those same products, most are also testing other operating systems, notably Windows NT. Of those actually replacing their VMS systems, the majority are going to NT, but not on Alpha. IDC believes most are migrating to the leading NT server platforms, Compaq, Dell, HP and IBM and that DEC is giving its VAX base away.
