X-no-Archive:yes
Unfortunately, and, according to CSY, the support dollars were not covering
costs as projected. Also, some number of customers were going with
third-party support, so hp got bupkis from them. at least for those needs,
on the 3000 (I still wonder where those shops got their printers and MS OS
boxes, but there is no cell formatting on a spreadsheet for loyalty).

Could this have been remedied? Perhaps. Probably. But have you looked at MVS
(or OS/390 or z/OS) pricing? We are already off-loading some tasks from our
mainframe to other platforms, because the cost of the same software, or at
worst equivalent software, is much less on commodity platforms, sometimes
20%.

OTOH, when we need big iron processing, we buck up and pay what it costs for
the big iron software. So, our print and mail finishing work stays on the
mainframe, in part because that is where it starts, and in part because we
have millions of "lines" of print to process, manage, and back up.

While this line is an ever advancing line, and pioneers are doing today
things that would have been unthinkable in the near past. Higher end systems
are ever more capable. But at some level, you have enough data, enough
transactions, that mainframe becomes your only proven choice. Unfortunately,
the 3000 does not enjoy this same perception, some business need for which
the answer was, "Well, then, you're going to have to get an hp e3000".

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com

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