.... and before "DCE etc" is was "Samba/iX and Unix-style
logons".... But I have a feeling this discussion will go on
for awhile; and IMHO we need to pursue this at a strategic
level; not just in individual bits ands pieces..... Therefore
my "expansion" of the title....
First John Dunlop after Jeff:
>> ..... It appears that DCE/3000 (which is based on OSF DCE 1.0.2) is
>>dropping behind the versions on other platforms (e.g. HP-UX, VAX etc)
and HP
>>have not confirmed that there are any plans to offer an upgrade. It is
driven
>>by customer demand and apparently not enough customers are driving it
Then several perceptive comments by Duane Percox:
>Ah - the chicken and the egg. As the HP3k becomes more
>mature and the funding models are setup to see a direct return
>on each investment, technology like DCE and CORBA will not
>become mainstream MPE products.
>This is failed thinking for the following reasons:
I strongly agree with Duane. The above of course applies
to a lot more than just DCE/3000 and CORBA.
.... SNIP....
>2. It keeps the HP3k from playing big-time in the distributed
>computing arena. Too bad. HP has one of the best CORBA
>ORB's (Object Request Broker) running on HP-UX. They have
>recently announced support for linking DCOM (Microsft's
>Distributed object technology).
Many of y'all may have noticed that CORBA and DCOM
were front page news on two consecutive recent issues of
Computerworld....
>This is where I should chime in and begin discussing
>additional ideas for adjusting the MPE funding model [look
>for a posting soon on this topic]
Pending post eagerly awaited. I have also been wanting to
follow-up post-IPROF in this subject area, but I keep getting
pre-empted. IPROF-97 management roundtable attendees
will recall that I and others tried to present some ideas for
increasing CSY / Roseville R&D Lab funding for the 3000, to
close what is still a significant gap between enhancements
that could productively be done to various 3000 software
systems and the ongoing level of R&D support.
I basically tried to suggest adding a support contract part
number for "CSY R&D" at an *average* of $1000 per year
to each and every 3000 support contract, and sending all of
that to CSY / Roseville Labs. Then if there are, say, 20,000
HP 3000's still on support, that would be $20,000,000 a year
in additional R&D funding... Provided of course there was no
noticeable drop-off in support contracts because of the higher
cost.
Response from both Harry Sterling and Doug Blackwood
was that they didn't feel they could or should raise the cost
of ownership for all 3000 customers; plus it didn't fit the HP
business model... Although at the end I heard Harry mention
that CSY is open to consideration of other ideas in this area.
The "doesn't fit the business model" argument is not a good
reason by itself, IMNSHO. The "business model" should be
a means to best serve HP customer needs, not an end in
itself where customer needs becomes secondary (boy, I've
seen enough of that in our end of the Government). If there
are needs the model is not meeting, make an exception....
However: What raising the cost of ownership for all 3000
customers would do to the competitive position of the platform
vis-a-vis IBM, et. al. is certainly a valid concern. I remember
Doug Blackwood saying that their experience shows that
even relatively small changes in cost of ownership can be
significant to a fair number of sites (didn't take exact notes,
so I'm paraphrasing a bit). At least for now, let's assume
that's correct. And we certainly don't want to make it any
harder for HP to sell more *new* 3000's. So: Now what ??..
I was pretty much going on the assumption that an additional
charge for HP 3000 R&D would have to be universal, in order
to generate a large enough revenue stream to make a major
difference. And as my colleague Steve Dirickson pointed out
at the same roundtable, if it was purely voluntary with no
perceived real benefit to the contributors beyond what all the
other non-contributing users would get for "free" anyway, we
would in large part be depending on pure altruism... Which is
probably not viable long-term.
At this point I didn't have any other immediate idea, bright or
otherwise. But then I ended up talking privately to Duane after
we got back: He definitely had some interesting additional
thoughts (he has probably come up with more since I talked
to him).
I might still be a little skeptical on how far we can go without
a universal additional "CSY R&D" charge, but Duaue sounded
like he might be on to the next best thing.... So I urge y'all
to carefully consider and comment on Duane's interesting
ideas in his "coming soon" post.... How's that for a lead-in
"teaser" ?? :-)
Standing by,
Ken Sletten
|
