FTR:
 
I run a multi site operation with HP3000/9xx, HP9000/8xx, WIndows NT 3.51
SP4's, WinNT 4.0b2's and Win95 SP1's, all interconnected on a ethernet thinlan
and directly hooked to the internet via a fractional T1. Our HP300 is also
connected to an WAN using X.25.  We use Image DBMS, PowerHouse 4GL on the
3000, Perl5.002, GCC 2.7.2, ndbm, and TCL on the 9000, MS VC++ and MS VB on NT
and I avoid Win95 like a plague.  I personally ported sendmail 8.7.3 and 8.7.5
to the HP3000/8xx series servers and have contributed the necessary code
changes to a number of sites across Europe and Australia.  I am a registered
MS developer and have been for the past three years.  I have a degree in CS
and have been developing large and medium scale systems since 1979,  unless
one considers Norther Telecom's worldwide costing system small.
 
Now that we have cleared away.
 
I stand by my remarks.  HP has positioned the 3000 series poorly, that is the
substance of my argument.  They don't market it, and never have. HP comments
to the contrary are either willful decpection or pathic self-delusion. Even
so, on a total cost of ownership, once you include all the dodads that you
just have to get for unix and nt implemetations which do not come with the
basic product, the HP3000 does rather well.  It just isn't very pretty.  But
it is reliable, and it works, and works, and works.
 
Unix is no more general purpose than a steak knife.  If you push hard and long
enough it will cut through anything, but by the time you're finished you may
not care anymore.  What unix is, is popular, and that has nothing whatsoever
to do with its inherent qualities and a lot to do with it's low acquisition
cost.
 
NT is not a joke, but it isn't ready for prime time either.  In any case, NT,
Server or WorkStation, is not really positioned to acceptably deal with most
medium sized business requirements.  I'm sure that sufficient marketing effort
will conveniently bury this truth but it remains nontheless.  NT will be very
expensive to acquire, maintain and support.  I do not see this changing and it
may increase as a problem over time.
 
Extermely large scale business applications are the exception, not the rule.
Most (<95%) companies in the world gross less in a year than the capital cost
of a machine centre capable of below:
 
> Large scale is an IRIX cluster running a 500gb oracle database, and
> juggling 4,000 simultaneous users.
>
> Large scale is a machine with 6gb of memory handling over 140 database
> queries/second.
>
> Large scale is running computational fluid dynamics on a Fujitsu 1024 cpu
> machine.
 
But there is a market there.  HP has abondoned it to MS and Windows, but the
small to medium sized business really could use products like the HP3000 and
MPE/iX to much greater advantage.  It would be cheaper for them in total cost
as there would be less down time, more reliable operation, less requirement
for in house specialists, greater throughput, a longer hardware utilization
life and a number of other advantages that the processor of the week crowd
don't want to talk about.
 
But that's only my opinion, and what do I know?
--
James B. Byrne                  mailto:[log in to unmask]
Harte & Lyne Limited            http://www.harte-lyne.ca
Hamilton, Ontario               905-561-1241