Hello Friends:

Day Three of the HP World show included a major shift in the way
enhancements will get funded for HP 3000s, first mentioned at the MPE
Technical Roundtable and later at the SIGCOBOL meeting. Thanks to some new
management at in software support at HP, the support organization has said
it will fund customer enhancement requests for HP products. We also heard
about ship dates for FastTrack, more details on that Universal Data Access
alliance for DataExpress, and what was served on the City of San Diego
yacht that carried Lew Platt and guests around the harbor Tuesday night.

New support for 3000 funding

In a major shift in policy and philosophy, HP's support organization has
told 3000 customers it will help fund customer requested enhancements for
products. HP's Sue Bennett reported the shift early on Wednesday as part of
discussions about enhancements in the MPE/iX Technical Roundtable. It means
the Customer Funded Enhancements plan (HP's calling it CFE now) won't have
to bear the burden of so many enhancement requests that don't have critical
mass from the customer base. The Cobol II customers are really excited,
since the new funding means Roseville's engineers can get to work. IA-64
still remains the CSY priority. The best news? CSY is taking ownership of
the compilers.

Netscape FastTrack revs for shipment

HP will be bundling the FastTrack Web server in a PowerPatch after the 6.0
release, but you will be able to download a version. Steve Hoogheem of the
porting team said the release would happen in three stages. Customers who
have already expressed interest in checking out the work earliest will deal
with CSY directly to get the release first, he said. Then CSY will look for
anybody who's willing to take early access to the software late this
calendar year, but  "They've got to be forewarned with the caveats with it,
that it is an early release." Then the software will be shipped to the
masses who take delivery of a 6.0 PowerPatch, early in 1999.

It's ISG Navigator for DataExpress

Too many acronyms, too little sleep. We reported on Tuesday that
DataExpress is gaining technology that lets the product serve users on
Windows NT and Unix (and VMS) platforms with IMAGE database data. That new
tech comes from International Software Group, and the product is called ISG
Navigator. We promise not to work so early in the morning without notes
again.

ISG provides what it calls Universal Data Access software  based on the OLE
DB standard across multiple platforms. MB Foster Associates is licensing
ISG Navigator and ISG's Software Developer Kits, so MBFA can rapidly
develop new UDA drivers and wrap application code that can become UDA
components.

Tall glasses of amaretto

That's what was served on the City of San Diego as HP feted its customers
in the harbor of the same name. We heard about finger sandwiches, a kicky
jazz band and three decks of talk on the VIP cruise. Late in the evening,
chocolate covered strawberries were walked about the decks. We heard about
it second-hand, thank you. But then HP's customers deserve the best, eh?


Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 NewsWire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
[log in to unmask] http://www.3000newswire.com/newswire
512.331.0075