A Case Study on the Electronic Global Village

Appendix A. VMSHARE Usage

Growth of VMSHARE 1985-1988

Installations that logged on to VMSHARE at least once in a quarter:
 
         Quarter    Active    Sessions     Connect
                     Codes                   Hours
 
         4Q85          178        6214        1207
         1Q86          194        7332        1352
         2Q86          209        7678        1531
         3Q86          215        7373        1598
         4Q86          224        7974        1776
         1Q87          242        8883        1851
         2Q87          255       10900        2114
         3Q87          256        9743        2007
         4Q87          249        9905        2029
         1Q88          274       11088        2663
         2Q88          291       11180        2454
         3Q88          310       10585        2195
         4Q88          304       10306        1982
 
VMSHARE activity during the second half of 1988 by class of user:
 
         User       Active    Sessions     Connect
         Category    Codes                   Hours
 
         IBM            25         686         158
         SEAS           22         935         152
         GUIDE           2          25           3
         ASG             2         218          15
         SHARE         275       17653        3624
         officers       17         699          83
         admin           2         384          91
         outside         5         283          52

Active versus Passive Users

Session statistics were examined for the fourth quarter of 1988 to determine the ratio of those users actively participating in VMSHARE (i.e. appending to the fora) versus those who are content to just read what is being said. The results are as follows:

    Total Logged on: 304
    Active users:    167  55%
    Passive users:   137  45%
 
    Active-to-Passive ratio:  1.2 to 1
 
    Min. Activity:   1 operation
    Max. Activity:  91 operations
    Avg. Activity:  17 operations
 

Becoming Self-Supporting

The following extracts from files around the time that VMSHARE moved from TYMSHARE to McGill provide interesting insight into the many of the issues I raised in the bulk of the conference (including\ the effect of charging for the service and the role of VMSHARE in the VM community).

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McDonnell Douglas has been providing facilities for both VMSHARE and PCSHARE, at no cost to the user community. We are indebted to both Tymshare and to McDonnell Douglas for initiating and continuing this service, which has proven itself invaluable, for almost a decade, to VM installations across the world. It has become the heart of the VM community, exemplifying the true essence of SHARE -- providing a common ground for expression of ideas and concerns and a forum for information exchange. VMSHARE, with its acceptance and endorsement through active participation, has fostered the great sense of comradery we have seen for years among the SHARE VM Group members, who have been largely responsible for molding VM into the strategic product we see today.

The value of the conference cannot be measured. Unfortunately, the costs can, and as of June 30, McDonnell Douglas will no longer be able to provide VMSHARE free of charge.

We do have alternatives before us, but we do not have much time.

• We have been given a fee quote of approximately $22,000/month to continue using McDonnell Douglas. This number is a fair representation of costs to them (no profit margins). It does not include printing.

  We currently have about 225 "active" userids, and the cost, evenly spread, would be about $100/month to each installation - higher if the number of users willing to pay decreased to below 225.

• We have a tentative offer from a university (final approval pending) to provide a home for the VMSHARE data. Access, however, would be through long-distance phone calls (to the East Coast), and those costs would be borne by each individual installation. Printing would not be provided.

  Overseas connections may be difficult.

1. Would your installation pay $100/month for continued access to VMSHARE?

2. Would your installation pay as much as $200/month?

3. Would you prefer to pay variable long-distance phone charges vs. a fixed monthly rate? (Long-distance rates are about $25/hour prime time, about $15/hour after 5 p.m.)

4. How severely would the lack of print service impact your installation?

5. Do you have any other alternatives to suggest?

Our deadline is fast approaching. Please append this memo with your reply as soon as possible. Thank you.

Sandra Hassenplug, VM Group Manager

*** CREATED 06/05/85 16:31:57 BY $GM/SANDRA ***

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Some of the responses also highlight these issues:

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The saddest part of all this is that no matter what we manage to do to preserve a version of VMSHARE, if new VM users have to pay up before they can see what it's all about, they won't join. VMSHARE will slowly dwindle without new blood. In 1981 when I first got on, there was not the slightest chance of convincing my boss to pay $100/month for access. Now I can point to all sorts of examples where we have saved countless hours and dollars thanks to VMSHARE and its generous contributors. If we could somehow offer trial access to new users it would improve the long term prospects immeasureably.

Our company would probably pay the 100/month, but not 200/month. I know that this may have already been thought of, but can't McDonald D. write-off the expense as a contribution to a non-profit organization?

I hate to think of an OCO(5) world with user to user communication only four times a year. (Or worse, controled by the vendor.)

I guess I'd vote for Compuserve since I might be able to afford it out of my own pocket.

(5) OCO = Object Code Only - a policy of software vendors to only distribute the executable portion of the software and not the source code or internal documentation. In 1983, IBM stated that it was adopting this policy. A large part of the work by the VMSHARE members is to resist this policy by providing strong counter arguments.