As
winter days became shorter, Margo and I found our way deeper into Florida. We
drove up and down the Florida peninsula stopping by Orlando and then Ft
Lauderdale. The temperatures climbed the further south we drove; this was
expected. Overnighting in Orlando gave me an opportunity to capture the mood of
central Florida in a series of happy-snaps on my mobile phone. The view from
our hotel room highlighted a bridge that provided passageway between both banks
of the lake.
This
week I was reminded of this as we watched the Superbowl. There were surprises
just as there were a number of outstanding performances – outstanding, yes,
just as they were unexpected. However, having driven the length of Florida it
took little imagination to think back to 2007 when the Superbowl was played in
Miami and to the halftime spectacular centered on the entertainment provided by
Prince.
Just minutes before Prince was scheduled start his performance, the rains descended in earnest. When asked whether he would like to postpone or cancel, he responded, “let it rain!” It may not have been purple rain, but it set the tone so much so that following the performance, it led to Marcus Aurelius, a stoic philosophy to pen, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
2025
will likely be a year of transformation. A year when bridging the gulf between
expectation and reality hits home. A time when the NonStop community’s
well-being continues to be of primary importance. A sense that the four stakeholders
of the NonStop community – the HPE NonStop team, the NonStop customers, the vendors
and the consultants – need to step up and consider how far they have come, in
say twenty-five or even fifty years, as well as to look at what will drive
their future.
I
often overlook the presence of NonStop consultants as a separate stakeholder
more often than not, lumping them in with NonStop vendors. I know I shouldn’t
as these stakeholders include the likes of Margo and myself. The consultants
out there that we know have a different perspective. They spend more time
inside NonStop customer teams than anyone other than the customers themselves,
and have the added benefit of seeing multiple NonStop customers over shorter
periods. They also benefit when the community benefits and are among the
earliest of stakeholders to spread good news about NonStop as and when it takes
place.
The
old has become the new and what was once the foundation is in urgent need of
replacement. There have been waves of popularity for NonStop; from financial
services, to telecommunications, to stock trading, to healthcare. With each
wave the enthusiasm has been palpable. Through it all the community has
demonstrated a level of integrity and purpose that has ensured the relevance of
NonStop has been maintained for fifty years.
This
is not a trivial number. Take a look around. Only one other platform, the IBM
mainframe, can say something similar. It begs the question – will cloud
computing even exist in say fifty years’ time? Or will we have cycled back and
forth between the historical boundaries of decentralized versus centralized.
Perhaps it matters little in the here and now but what does stand out is the
need for the NonStop community to build bridges and to demonstrate a fairness,
honesty and a commitment to the well-being of the NonStop community.
The
catalyst for this post lies with the recent NonStop senior management
presentations highlighting the variety of NonStop vendors active within the
vendor ecosystem. The chosen slides look impressive at first glance and yes,
the inclusion of Pyalla Technologies didn’t escape notice of this storyteller.
However, the NonStop community today is being actively supported by just a
handful of the vendors whose logos were on display and the reality is that this
list is under pressure.
Within
communities there will always be divisions, cliques and cooperative liaisons
appearing. It’s just a natural phenomenon – we don’t all have to like each
other and I can attest to the fact that not everyone is on board with the
content of posts I write. However, the time has come for some serious bridge
building. If the next fifty years will count for something, a little courage is
needed and a lot less time wasting (over petty issues) is important.
Pressure?
Time Wasting? Courage? The NonStop platform is supremely blessed with
recognized attributes and the moves of late by the NonStop team to shift to a
more modern approach to system development and the porting of apps to NonStop,
combined with embracing the world of open together with support of development
from within the services of popular cloud service providers, has lessened the
barrier of entry into the NonStop marketplace. This good news should be central
to all marketing campaigns coming from the NonStop team.
Pressure
is coming from the transformation of markets normally addressed by NonStop. I
have witnessed firsthand the cannibalization of the NonStop market by Compaq
and then by HPE itself. The NonStop community cannot count on HPE being
entirely friendly to NonStop but just as Prince enjoyed walking onto a stage
being flooded by rain, this current situation faced by the NonStop community
just has to be turned to its own advantage.
And
how does that work, exactly?
NonStop
vendors have to get a lot stronger and for many this means complementing
NonStop-focused product portfolios with support of open solutions. NonStop has
always existed in a hybrid world – leverage that to the fullest. For now, I am
witnessing considerable efforts being focused on replacement; one vendor
replacing another within an existing community. While this is healthy as some
vendors discount their efforts supporting NonStop, accepting a more widespread
pursuit of replacement is far from being fair, honest, and committed to the
community's well-being.
This
needs to be reexamined with perhaps the objective being to foster deeper
alliances within the community.
For
the NonStop team focus, focus, focus! My challenge to the new leadership is
simple. Yes, we are watching transformation as what was once a staple for
NonStop sales is no longer the force it was once. There are new market
verticals that need to be addressed and quickly. What was once (a staple) is no
longer; what is “now” is more important. Reliance heavily on former markets is
simply not healthy and not a good fit for the future well-being of NonStop.
What
needs to happen here is partnerships with all NonStop vendors. It’s time to
stop this nonsense of working with just a few that increasingly has become
backward facing and is comprised of, quite frankly, some good, some bad and
some plain ugly. Sorry Clint Eastwood, but the phrase seems appropriate in
these times.
The
NonStop customers continue to do their part. They have their own agendas as
their requirements continue to evolve. Having said that there is a pressing
need to see more evangelists emerge from the base of NonStop customers we have
today. Customer testimonials count and count many times more than an anonymous
case study about some obscure feature deployment. To remain main-stream NonStop
has to become more visible and this requires energy from the NonStop customers.
What
needs to happen in this case is well-recognized. Bridging the broader IT
community needs, demonstrating real-world usage of NonStop meeting pressing
business requirements and highlighting the value proposition cannot happen
without a solid base of reference customers delivering testimonials.
I
have come to like the word stoic. It’s not a word we expect to hear and yet, on
reflection it seems appropriate.
The
music of Prince may not be to everyone’s taste but I, like many others, do
recognize his genius. Then again, so too HPE NonStop isn’t for everyone, even
as its industry presence continues to be amazing. And yet, the market for
reliable systems, free of glitches and technical faults (and bad, and yes
hasty, pre-production testing), continues to hold merit. The well-being of the
NonStop community is in all our interest so for 2025, let this be that clarion
call for a much greater commitment to NonStop by all stakeholders and to the
promise that yes, there will be another fifty years of NonStop!
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