> The open systems and PC software trends seem to point toward general
> purpose operating software that does nearly everything more or less
> acceptably, though perhaps not well. You can get specialized software to
> work better in a specific domain, but with this model there is no
> alternative for those who need "better" general purpose operating
> systems.
 
I think you answered your own question here. HPUX (or any Unix for that
matter) is a swiss army knife, jack of all trades, etc. You can get HPUX
to do just about anything, with a little bit of effort. It doesn't do any
single thing exceptionally well, but it does just about anything you can
imagine.
 
MPE on the other hand does a few things exceptionally well, but it's not as
general purpose like Unix.
 
The fact there's desktop HPUX but not desktop MPE is also a very good
clue as to what environments they are intended for.
 
-Dan