Re:

> Any third-party worth his salt knows from the very first day that his product
> is likely to only have a limited lifetime when he offers a stopgap solution
> (something such as a network printing solution), before HP does itself. If he
> isn't prepared to abandon that product, or canabilize it, at a moment's

However, it's annoying to pick a niche where HP hasn't intruded, and
has even said "we won't do anything here", and then research/design/market
a product, and then have HP come along and say "oh, good idea...we're
gonna do that too!".  HP has a long list of things they can spend
resources on.  What I think Ron is pointing out is that if the long
list has something half way down the page which happens to be
competing with a pre-existing third party product, it doesn't serve
the user community well for HP to focus on *that* item.  Now, when
that item happens to be in the top section of the list, or is "strategic"
(whatever the hell *that* means!), things are different.

The blame for that has to be laid at partially at the feet of the users.
We're the ones who started using, say, ADAGER, and then said "hey, HP
should be doing this";  or, we started using network spoolers and
said "hey, why can't I get this for free?"

That's what's annoyed me about the system improvement ballot the last
five years or so ... most of the top items have been done somewhere/somehow
by someone ... someone other than HP.

That said, I don't know if the PJL / network printer problem properly
falls into the "it really is part of the existing software but doesn't
work right" category or into the "this is needlessly competing with
existing products" category, so I'm not going to comment on it.
I'm simply saying that Ron has a good point ... one that is not, has not,
and will not be "rubbish".

> disappears out from underneath you, you either adapt or die. There's nothing
> unfair about this process. As Tom Brandt wrote, "That's life".

Unfortunately, the phrase "life's not fair" comes to mind ... and that's
precisely what Ron is saying: spending energy on copying, when there
are other things you could be working on, is unfair.

> If HP,
> due to market demand, decides to plug a hole in its products that was being
> filled by thrid parties, well, that's life."

If the market demand didn't *EXIST* until the third party came up with the
idea, then "plugging a hole" can be translated as "jumping on the bandwagon".

I'm not against HP doing that in general ... I'm against them doing it if:

   - there's a more pressing need for HP R&D resources elsewhere;
     (i.e., are they shortchanging the users?)

   - HP encouarged the third party R&D and implied that the wouldn't
     compete against it (as has happened)

> The more fundamentally important a stopgap product you build, the more likely
> that it will be supplanted by a major vendor's solution. If you didn't
> anticipate this event when you began, it would be hard to call you a
> businessman.

Well, I guess we should all switch to Microsoft or IBM then.

I happen to believe in the "HP Way" ... and I think the HP Way would be
to ask "what benefits the customer the most".   Not "what costs the
least to implement because someone else already showed us that it can be done
and is worthwhile".

In short, just because a particular path is the "good business school" path,
that doesn't make it the "right" path (from an HP Way, ethics/moral viewpoint).

> The source of my irritation and embarassment are the PJL messages that clog
> up the system console when printing to any of the "modern" printers, at two
> messages per print job:
>
> ========================================
>
> 15:04/42/Output spooler, LDEV #300:  The PJL information returned from
> the printer contains a syntax error.  The first 52 (max) bytes are shown:
> @PJL USTATUS DEVICE
> CODE=10001
> DISPLAY="MPE/iX O17
> Native Mode Spooler message 9621

Hmmm...guess our HP LaserJet 5 Si MX isn't "modern", because we don't
get those messages :)

> Of interest in all of this is a fact that only adds to my irritation: in
> constrast to the HP3000's network spooler, the JetAdmin software on our PCs
> prints easily and well to all of the devices, in their native modes of
> operation.

From the printer division's viewpoint, there are only two computers
in existence: PCs and Macs.  Everything is a statistical anomaly. :)

--
Stan Sieler                                          [log in to unmask]
                                         http://www.allegro.com/sieler/