| Re: Research Systems Platform Support Update [message #28414 is a reply to message #28357] |
Wed, 05 December 2001 02:58  |
Marcus O'Brien
Messages: 16
Registered: October 2000
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Junior Member |
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And Research Systems decision to only support IDL 5.5 on Solaris 8 seems
to go completely unnoticed. Well my gut reaction is I'm damned if I'm
upgrading happy Solaris 7 machines just to upgrade IDL, which then leads
to, why the hell should I buy another maintenance contract.
I did e-mail similar thoughts to IDLs uk support team but they must be a
bit busy, as I've had no reply.
Marc 'hows this matlab stuff work anyway' O'Brien
Matthew Powell wrote:
>
> In response to customer requests for continued support of Mac OS X, IBM
> AIX and Compaq Tru64 Unix for Alpha platforms, Research Systems Inc.
> (RSI) announced today that it will reverse an earlier decision to drop
> support for these three platforms in future releases of IDL and ENVI.
> ?We have heard from our customers regarding the importance of these
> platforms to their work and have adjusted our plans accordingly,? stated
> Richard Cooke, Vice President of Engineering for Research Systems. ?We
> intend to work closely with the customer base to better understand their
> future platform plans so that we can make informed decisions about which
> platforms can be supported profitably.? RSI plans to take specific steps
> with its licensing tools to more accurately capture the platform mix of
> its customers in support of these future decisions and a platform survey
> will be sent out to all RSI customers requesting information on their
> current and future platform usage.
>
> Both AIX and Tru64 were supported in the recent IDL 5.5 and ENVI 3.5
> releases. For customers who received updates recently, no further
> action on their part is required other than to remain current on their
> maintenance to ensure that they will receive the updates for the next
> releases of each of these products. RSI will also be modestly adjusting
> maintenance and new license pricing for these platforms in order to
> cover the costs of supporting them. Details of these pricing changes
> will be forthcoming. The decision to continue support of the Compaq
> Tru64 Unix for Alpha platform does not apply to the new Intel IA-64
> (Itanium) platform currently being developed by Compaq. RSI has not yet
> made a decision regarding support of this platform. Continued support
> for AIX and Tru64 has been made possible through the assistance of IBM
> and Compaq.
>
> For the Macintosh OS X platform, RSI will be providing a native release
> using Tenon Intersystems? Xtools X-Windows server, giving customers the
> benefit of OS X?s Unix core while providing a Motif interface similar to
> that provided on other Unix platforms. This essentially allows RSI to
> support Mac OS X as another Unix platform, thus reducing the costs of
> development and support. Xtools is an easy-to-use Mac OS X application
> that lets scientists and engineers display X-Windows and Motif Windows
> on the Aqua desktop.
>
> ?We?re very pleased that Xtools is facilitating the port of these key
> and very popular applications to Mac OS X,? comments Anita Holmgren,
> Tenon?s President. ?We developed Xtools precisely with this purpose in
> mind.?
>
> For IDL customers, this solution provides a fully native version of IDL
> to the Macintosh user, including IDL?s existing Velocity Engine
> optimizations and multi-threading support, as well as support for most
> of the advantages of the Macintosh OS X hardware and software platform.
> RSI plans to provide a special pre-release of IDL for Mac OS X to
> customers in Q1, 2002, and officially release the final version based on
> customer feedback from the pre-release. An ENVI release for Mac OS X
> will follow shortly thereafter. A more firm date for ENVI will be
> provided after the first release period for IDL.
>
> With the implementation of this plan to move forward with a Mac OS X
> release for the Macintosh platform, IDL 5.5 will mark the last release
> to support Mac OS 8 and OS 9. For those RSI customers using the Mac
> platform who will not be migrating to Mac OS X, RSI will continue to
> sell the OS 8 and 9 release versions of IDL 5.5, but will not be
> releasing future versions of IDL or ENVI for these operating systems.
> Furthermore, as with AIX and Tru64, there will be a corresponding modest
> increase in maintenance and new license prices for the Macintosh
> platform in order to cover the associated development and support costs.
>
> Research Systems is committed to supporting our customers with their
> varied platform requirements while maintaining financially sound
> business practices. Our goal is to communicate all pertinent information
> to our customers in a timely fashion in order to allow them ample time
> to make well informed platform decisions. Accordingly, we would like to
> reassure our customers on other currently supported platforms that we
> have no plans to discontinue any of them at this time. We ask customers
> for assistance in planning for the future by informing their sales
> representatives about their future platform purchase plans so that we
> can better support our customer base. We also ask that our customers
> take a moment to complete and return a brief survey that will be
> e-mailed to them shortly regarding their current platform usage and
> future purchase plans.
--
Tel: 0208 725 2857
Fax: 0208 725 2992
St George's Hospital Medical School
Department of Biochemistry and Immunology
Cranmer Terrace
Tooting
London SW17 0RE
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