Hewlett-Packard has changed its direction on OpenVMS. Instead of pushing its users off the system, it has licensed OpenVMS to a new firm that plans to develop ports to the latest Itanium chips and is promising eventual support for x86 processors.
Last year, HP put OpenVMS on the path to extinction. It said it would not validate the operating system to its latest hardware or produce new versions of it. The move to license the OpenVMS source code to a new entity, VMS Software Inc. (VSI), amounts to a reversal of that earlier decision.
VSI plans to validate the operating system on Intel's Itanium eight-core Poulson chips by early 2015, as well as support for HP hardware running the upcoming «Kittson» chip. It will also develop an x86 port, although it isn't specifying a timeframe. And it plans to develop new versions of OpenVMS.
Duane Harris, the CEO of VSI, said his firm decided to approach HP about OpenVMS because of its strong customer base. OpenVMS is used in nuclear power plants, in process control systems in all industries, by the U.S. Navy and in transportation and finance.
«We feel very strongly that OpenVMS is the most secure operating system out there, and certainly more secure than Windows and certainly more secure than Linux,» said Harris.
VSI said it has assembled a team of veteran OpenVMS developers, some from the core Digital Equipment Corp. team that developed the operating system. The system traces its roots back to the mid-1970s. Digital was acquired by Compaq and Compaq by HP.
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