I didn't want to clip all the comments about HP's current non-ambitions
about MPE in the interest of keeping this post short...
 
Since someone bandied a Bible verse around, I thought that I would add my
own:  Without a vision, a people perishes.
 
In the context of MPE this means that for MPE to survive, the leadership
needs to have a passion for their baby.  Vision only comes through a
passionate desire to a particular objective.  Clearly, most of HP lacks
this vision.  I do particularly appreciate George's evangelistic fervor
but there has to be more.
 
I appreciate John Burke's comments about Olivier lacking the passion for
the HP3000 though it may be misrepresenting Olivier's real heart.  Be
that as it may, there still needs to be more than what a fervent-Olivier
can do.
 
I believe that the problem goes higher and that Isaac really put his
finger on it, "He who has the gold, rules.".
 
Will all this carping about what HP is doing to our HP3000 make any
difference?  No way.  I think that the only thing that will make any
difference at all is if we can collectively make the HP3000 even more
successful than it already is.
 
I believe that Sun Tzu said in "The Art of War": "If you wait long
enough, you will see the body of your enemy floating by on the river of
time."  In many ways Unix *is* the enemy.  For many years many of us have
struggled, some in small ways (like myself), some in greater ways (like
Stan, Alfredo Rego, and others) to advance our operating-system-of-choice
to be the most mature, reliable, effective, and cost-efficient choice
around.  The thing that really gets to me is that now that we have in
many ways the most reliable platform around, the parents are abandoning
it in favor of a backward savant.  I don't hate unix, why bother?  But, I
have invested too much of myself over the years in MPE to see it so
shabbily treated by its parents.
 
I believe that in some ways we are beginning to see some bodies floating
by with Unix.  I am seeing many of our customers and prospect begin to
withdraw decisions to go to Unix.  One of the reasons is that these
mature businesses, often with mission-critical applications running on
3000's, cannot and will not trade off reliability, no matter what.
 
If we are patient, and stick to our guns, we will continue to have at
least a measure of success which may grow to the point that HP will turn
their hearts toward home.
 
Hey, John... why not be passionate?  Life is too short to be blase...
 
Bill Lancaster
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