Hello everyone!

Well, I attended the Showcase Event held in Cleveland, Ohio on 2/26.
Wayne Lukacsko (the CSY Product Line Sales Manager for the midwest
region) was the keynote speaker.  I just thought I would relay some
of his more "interesting" statements.  Some of these things I had heard
before, some not.  Anyway, here they are:

1)  HP3K sales for first quarter 1997 are ahead of first quarter 1996.

2)  If the HP3K business was split off as a separate company, that company
would be a Fortune 500 company.

3)  HP is moving to outside partners for sales support, instead of
utilizing internal sales staff (that's a real revelation!).

4)  HP probably sells 20 times as many HP9K's as HP3K's.

5)  He relied on the Growing/Supplementin/Replacing model that was defined
during the HP3K Future Directions video teleconference.  He said that the
split among HP3K customers is 45% Growing, 45% Supplementing, and 10%
Replacing.

6)  On the matter of 32-bit versus 64-bit he said that it (a 64-bit OS)
doesn't really matter except for scientific calculations and file sizes.
And since HP has already promised greater than 4GB file sizes, a 64-bit
OS is not relevant to the HP3K.

7)  Peripherals to be supported in 1997: 9GB disk drives, Fast/Wide DLT,
and EMC Symmetrix 3430 disk drives/arrays.

8)  Peripherals to be supported in 1998 and beyond: Fibre channel disk
arrays and DLT library.

9)  OS enhancements planned: ISAM keys for Image, Pop-up/pull-down menus
for VPlus, undefined enhancements for COBOL II, GNU C++, and POSIX.

10) NT interoperability: Samba, 32-bit ODBC, and CORBA/COM.

11) Internet services: Java virtual machine and Java developer's kit.

12) Under DB gateways, he had an interesting item listed that he glossed
over until I questioned him on it: KSAM/SQL.  I have never heard HP mention
KSAM and SQL in the same news release, let alone as a planned enhancement.
Upon questioning he said that when the slides were prepared (about two months
ago), HP was planning to have KSAM/SQL as part of its OEM 32-bit ODBC, but
that was now a low priority item and if we really needed it, MB Foster could
provide KSAM/SQL today.

13) Multiple platform backup will be implemented as Legato on the HP9K.

14) Ron Seybold got some good press when Wayne plugged the HP3000 NewsWire.
Wayne said that he wouldn't be surprised if Ron was hiding under one of the
tables!  Wayne also said that he encourages (requires?) his direct reports
to subscribe to the HP3K NewsWire.

Well, that's all.  Make of it what you will.

Jim Phillips                            Manager of Information Systems
E-Mail: [log in to unmask]      Therm-O-Link, Inc.
Phone: (330) 527-2124                   P. O. Box 285
  Fax: (330) 527-2123                   Garrettsville, Ohio  44231