On Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:01:07 +0000, John Dunlop <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>You can read about HP's plans here :
>
>http://www.crn.com/Sections/BreakingNews/dailyarchives.asp?ArticleID=34126
>
>Cheers,
>
>John Dunlop
>
The most interesting thing in the above referenced article was that HP
plans to continue production of the PA-RISC (HP-UX based) servers until
2005.  Even more importantly, they will fully support the PA-RISC server
line until at least 2015  --  that's 10 years (not 5) after the date of
last sale/EOL!

Now, since the hardware is identical for MPE & HP-UX, why can't HP use the
same EOL parameters for MPE as HP-UX?  One of the more brilliant strategies
about MPE/XL that CSY did was to be able to piggy-back on the hardware
development that was going on anyway with HP-UX; i.e., they did not have to
develop a separate hardware platform for MPE.

So why not offer MPE for sale until 2005?  Since HP doesn't have any
marketing costs (deemed pointless some time ago) for MPE, it is simply a
matter of taking any orders that find their way in the door and increasing
overall hardware volume with no additional effort.

Hardware support between MPE & HP-UX systems is the same thing, why not
write support agreements until 2015 for any PA-RISC system (even if it runs
MPE)?  Again, this is just extra business (profit) for the same in-place
resources.

This means that only software support capability (Response Center PICS and
S.E.'s) needs to be retained as an extra consideration until 2015 or so
long as enough customers want it.  This is paid for by service agreements.

Since MPE is so stable HP could even get away without lab support for new
peripherals and patches, as long as customers understand that MPE would be
frozen at some point (11-2003).

So what's the problem with this picture?

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