Olav writes:
> According to the webcast this morning and the way I understood
> it,the conversion kit is available for free ONLY for PA8700.
> The PA8500 requires an additional cost to bring it up to PA8700,
> then the kit is free.

Yes this is confusing.  The way I understand it, the above is true only if
you want to have a PA-8700 system in the end.

A free upgrade (as announced last year) is available from the current
PA-8500 A-class systems, and it does not change the hardware so you still
have a PA-8500 in the end, it's just been changed to be a 9000 instead of a
3000.

What they were trying to tell you is that there is no upgrade kit that will
let you go from a PA-8500 MPE box to a PA-8700 HP-UX box in one go.  You
must buy an upgrade to the MPE PA-8700 A-Class machine and then when you do
the free to-unix conversion you will (obviously) have a PA-8700 machine in
the end.

All MPE A-class and N-class systems, both current and newly announced, have
available free conversion kits form HP that will convert them to
non-clock-reduced HP-UX systems of the equivalent model based on whatever
CPU(s) are in the box at the time of the conversion.

Again this is throwing away your expensive MPE license in exchange for a
cheaper Unix license on what's possibly an obsolete system at the time that
you do it (which is one reason to buy or upgrade to one of the newly
announced systems, they turn into more recent and therefore longer supported
HP-UX systems).  Depending on the market conditions in effect at the time
you do the conversion (any time up to 12/31/2006 I believe), you may find
that the MPE box is worth more than the converted HP-UX box, or that an even
newer and faster HP-UX system may be available at that time, so you might be
better off selling the 3000 and buying a new Unix system.

This would also let you run in parallel for some period of time with both
the old and new systems in place.  How many people with a single box can
actually do the conversion and cutover all at once?  Maybe... none?

HTH,

G.

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