Alllan Chalmers writes:

> For those of you with faith in HP's commitment to the 3000:
>
>  Please tell me how many mentions of said computer you find in the annual
>  report.

That is precisely the core of the problem. There are a great many people in
HP who share the same degree of profound faith in the HP3000 that the users
do. But they're not in positions of sufficient power to dictate policy.

While I am sure that CSY is not the only HP division not prominently
mentioned in the annual report, simply because there are too many divisions
nowadays, I have long believed that perhaps the best tactic for HP and the
long-term health and well-being of the HP3000 is to allow it to become a
completely separate, wholly-owned subsidiary division of HP, with a new name
and a charter to argue its case FOR the HP3000, vis-a-vis HP-UX and NT, with
the same level of vigor, enthusiasm and aggressiveness that Microsoft argues
for its products.

This is the model that GM uses with Saturn. Heck, the slogan is already
there: " A different kind of company. A different kind of computer." My only
concern is that GM holds too tight a rein on Saturn and that level of control
should not be there.

When I discussed this idea with Alfredo Rego a while back, he asked, "What
would you call this new company." I said that I didn't have the slightest
idea. But because we were talking in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I said, off of the
top of my head, "Why not Santa Fe?" The more I've thought of it since then,
the more I actually like the name, if for no other reason than in Spanish,
Santa Fe means the "Holy Faith." And faith and control are the two great
pillars of success in all of this.

The simple level of business success that HP3000 customers have been able to
traditionally achieve with the machine and its software is the only reason to
stay with platform. There is no other. But if our individual tasks are to
figure out how to extract as much money from our various employers as
possible, then we should each individually recommend a complete replacement
of whatever computing systems our employers now have in place every three or
four years. As a group, we profit best from inducing chaos. But such a
strategy certainly does the owning business no good at all -- and sooner or
later, there is going to appear a substantial push to make all of this
stable, reliable, productive, and profitable.

These have long been the characteristics of the HP3000 (or perhaps the
SF3000) -- and they're worth fighting for -- because they will eventually be
the primary characteristics of whatever corporate database platform proves
triumphant.

Wirt Atmar