On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:01:25 -0500 (Central Daylight Time), Bill Towe
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>We have had a number of people ask about this, so I wanted to list this
>response to everyone.  I apologize if this drags the list down:
>
>What a number of MPE users are doing is "upgrading before homesteading".
>What that means is they are purchasing newer MPE equipment and keeping it for
>years to come.  They do not plan on moving from the MPE platform any time soon.
>This action or "non-action" is called "homesteading".  But before they do so,
>they are upgrading their systems and OS.
>
[snip]

>I for one, think the 9X7 and 9X8 systems will last for a very long time with
>third party support available.

For some customers, that's probably true. But someday, you will not be
able to find a working C2490AM anymore...

>But we have had a large number of customers
>call and ask about upgrading before homesteading.

The biggest problem for these folks will be if they expect their
workload on the systems to increase in the next N years to a level
that makes their 9x7 systems inadequate. When they get to that point
(maxed out on memory, etc) then they may have a hard time acquiring a
box in 2005 or 2007 that will accomodate them. For those customers,
getting into a A-class gives them the most "headroom" over a long
period of time.  It also gets them the most I/O options for the long
haul, too.

The same argument applies to the OS side, as well.

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