Here is what I have been able to gather so far:
DEC sold their Polycenter suite of products to CA (Computer Associates) in 1996. CA has now announced that as of 1-99 they will no longer support this product.
Polycenter is not Y2K compliant and never will be. CA is not going to do the software fix required. They either 'can't', don't want to, don't have the time, who knows? Anyway, there are about 35,000 DEC machines (GLBM's estimate) out there currently running on Polycenter software. CA has put a lot of the Polycenter functionality in their TNG (The Next Generation) product. They will not do a 'stand-alone' Polycenter replacement. CA is doing the logical thing in trying to get this acquired customer base to use the primary CA product by saying to them, "you must use TNG". TNG is a typical systems software product in that it costs a lot (as in $millions) and takes a long time to install (as in months).
Obviously, most of the current Polycenter users do not want to be 'forced' to buy TNG. Also, there simply isn't enough time for all of them to get it installed even if they wanted to.
DEC must be unhappy seeing their customers held hostage like this. Needless to say, the DEC users are concerned. Even though the 'customers' of Polycenter are really CA customers, they still regard it (rightly so) as DEC's responsibility to see that they can keep their stuff up and running.
They (DEC) found out about the VCC just about 2 months ago and has moved very fast. DEC has now 'certified' the VCC as a replacement for the important part of Polycenter, namely Polycenter Console Manager.
Apparently Platinum Software (nearly a $billion in revenue) has other 'replacement parts' (but not console consolidation) so that together Platinum + GLBM replace the whole thing. So DEC has Platinum and GLBM next to each other at this conference. DEC has also given GLBM an hour in front of all their attendees to explain what they can do to solve this problem.
It seems to me that this is about as strong an endorsement as one can get from DEC, short of them running ads that say "Don't be held hostage by CA. Buy GLBM's product."
It also seems to me that this is, or at least may be, the 'big break'that GLBM (and all of us) have been waiting for. Every CIO who has one of these 35,000 machines is finding out that he/she has a problem, knows that they have to fix it, knows that it must be done soon, and has a budget to do it with. They ARE going to buy something.
The GLBM solution costs about $10,000 per machine and can be
installed (worst case scenario) in a few weeks.
Personally, I would be more than happy if GLBM only got 10% of the
business ($35 million in sales) over the next 15 months. I don't
think that is unrealistic.
But in any event, it does seem 'certain' that they will get some of
the business, and that it will add significantly to their revenues.
Also, these are all big customers. This could be Global's 'foot in
the door' with MANY potentially huge clients, even if the initial
sale is only $10-50,000.
Finally, speaking at the DEC conference because they have the
solution' absolutely, positively adds tremendous credibility to the
company and the product, period.
I would be willing to bet that GLBM is the only bulletin board company speaking at the DEC meeting! |
