Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: trouthead who wrote (32760)	9/11/1998 7:27:00 PM
From: rudedog	Respond to of 97611

All good points. The CPQ servers can survive a power supply, network card, disk card, fan, or hard disk failure without interrupting normal operations. In the event of a failure which takes down the operating system, components in the basic chips or special diagnostic circuits take over and allow analysis of hardware component errors, error logs, memory dumps, etc. The system can be rebooted remotely and the remote technician can watch the boot process. After spending years and lots of money on this technology, why would CPQ want to make it available to everyone else? The idea there is that if all components in a large system can use a common set of protocols to access capabilities like these, then generalized tools and access methods will develop which will move the whole of the 'industry standard' computing environment forward. CPQ, as the biggest vendor in that space, will benefit the most, and can through its value-added components, capture an even larger share of that business. That's the 'most manageable' section of their message. On your second point, I agree completely, this is not a zero-sum game. As Dell and CPQ get into increasingly different businesses, their dynamics will differ and at any given time one will be making more progress than the other. It has been a good strategy for me - my Dell investment over the last year has maintained my overall portfolio health, and I think CPQ will do the same next year. But then I don't juggle my portfolio much, so this is kind of the extent of my diversification.

To: trouthead who wrote (32760)	9/11/1998 8:34:00 PM
From: John Koligman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Junior, Now that I'm through reading about 'cigars', I can add a few words. IBM techs have had the ability to dial into mainframes for a long time now. From the hardware side they can view logs, error data, etc. etc. From the software side, if MVS takes a system dump for instance, there is a tool called remote screen viewing. This is a tool whereby an IBM software specialist in a support center simply logs on to the customer's site, is given access to the dataset where the dump is, and starts viewing the dump remotely to diagnose the problem. This tool can also be used to look at MVS control blocks on a 'live' system that is in some trouble, in hopes of diagnosing the problem. If storage needs to be altered to fix the problem, this can also be done, either remotely or by system programmers at the installation. John