11 Jun
2009
11 Jun
'09
9:40 a.m.
On Jun 11, 2009, at 10:07 AM, John Foust wrote:
As they say, even if you're coasting, you must be
going downhill.
Any business process faces the same issue. If you can't easily
expand or duplicate the process, if you can't easily hire the
people to run it, you'll seek a replacement. There's always the
proverbial PDP-8 running a CNC machine for decades, but it's
more difficult with systems that deal with changing product lines
and increasing numbers of employees and their connected technologies.
Well, some industries don't really have changing product lines and
increasing numbers of employees. I'm told (by someone who knows)
that VMS is very widely used in the steel industry for controlling
large plants (of the type for which downtime becomes unbelievably
expensive), and for handling SMS messages in mobile phone networks,
as two examples.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL