At 01:34 PM 3/19/98 -0800, Richard Holloway wrote:
>We had someone here say there were only about 350 HP3000 shops world
>wide. Don't laugh they really said this in a meeting. Anyway, we asked
>HP for some numbers on just the 3K and this is what they sent us. There
>are currently about 20,000 3K shops with about 30,000 3Ks in the US
>only. There is also a growth rate of about 10% per year. If this is a
>dying machine, then a living machine must be instant world wide
>saturation. This information is about a month old.

If there was one theme that was repeated during the various IPROF
sessions last week, it was the fact that the HP3000 market is
indeed growing.  HP themselves had a lot to talk about, in terms of
the effort (e.g. resources!) and investments they were making in
the HP3K.  Winston Prather, CSY Lab Mgr, for the record indicated that
there were more people in CSY this year than there had been in many
years, and with everything HP is doing, I suspect there will be still
more next year!

So the message from CSY is that the growth in the HP3000 market has
been sustained enough for HP Corporate to increase their investments
in also expanding the technology.  The fact that HP hinted at
hardware growth plans for the next 5+ years, along with software
development plans to keep pace shows a renewed commitment.  Clearly
all the CSY folks at the conference were *very* excited about what
they were doing and where things were going!

On one hand, HP talked about delaying several projects simply due
to resource commitments in addressing the longer-term, more strategic
issues, such as 1TB files.  But given what this investment in
resources will mean to the future of the product family, I
whole-heartedly support the long-term view.

I've not seen this level of excitement at CSY for many, MANY years
and it certainly is great to watch!  What also is important to
recognize is the fact that HP Corporate is clearly behind the
future of the HP3000 and is demonstrating it with the investment
commitment they are supporting.  Various HP folks also hinted at
possibly new advertising campagns along with new announcements.  I
got the feeling that it would probably start around mid-year, but
I don't recall any specific timeframes.

If you attending IPROF and didn't come away with the feeling that
HP has turned the corner and is plowing ahead full-steam, then
clearly you must have been sleeping during the various sessions!


/jf
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                        Monday, March 23rd

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