Say Wirt:

Do we who contributed to the Defense Fund demand a refund now?

8~))

Definitely NOT my employer's opinions...

John M  Penney
Department of Licensing
State of Washington
Olympia, WA
(360)664-1392
(360)586-1919 (Fax)
[log in to unmask]
"Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of my employer..."

> ----------
> From:         Ken Hirsch[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Ken Hirsch
> Sent:         Monday, September 25, 2000 2:07 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: [HP3000-L] How does MPE sound?
>
> Stigers, Greg [And] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > How "proprietary" is MPE? It both is and isn't. Our Oracle DBAs
> frequently
> > just use familiar UNIX / POSIX commands from the CI, and will even work
> > entirely in the shell. But MPE * is * proprietary. Does that doom it to
> > eventual extinction? I think that there is at least one list member who
> > understand extinction rather well, who would disagree. Proprietariness
> is
> > not so much hurting the UNIX / Linux variants, nor Microsoft, nor IBM's
> > OS/390 or OS/400 (which doesn't even have Apache or SAMBA at this
> time!).
> > Why should it hurt MPE? It's a state of mind, addressed by marketing! It
> is
> > very much HP's choice if they want to be like Unisys, Wang, Data
> General,
> > DEC, Prime, or like NT / W2K and the AS/400.
>
> IBM and Microsoft will survive, other than those, there is only Unix.
> (And IBM is consolidating to OS/390, OS/400, and Unix, discouraging new
> users on VM/CMS, VSE, OS/2 and anything else that may still linger.)
>
> The same consolidation is happening in the Unix market.  Only 4
> proprietary
> Unix variants are still viable--HP, Sun, IBM, DEC/Compaq.  And I think
> DEC/Compaq's proprietary Unix may not have long left.  Other computer
> makers
> are either adopting one of these Unixes or another "standard" unix, going
> to
> a niche strategy, or disappearing.  SCO has collapsed.
>
> Most computer makers are choosing Linux as one supported OS, and usually
> choose Red Hat Linux as the particular variant to support, because it is
> the
> most popular.  HP, Compaq, and IBM are all supporting Linux (Sun does sell
> Linux for its machines, but doesn't really support it...yet). This trend
> will continue.
>
> Linux is in that dynamic state where market share can change very fast.
> As
> a result, hardware and software vendors are making the commitment to get
> in
> early--Oracle and other DBMSs are on Linux, IBM is porting its Logical
> Volume Manager, SGI is porting its XFS--both of which will make Linux a
> much
> more powerful system.  It's going to be a pain to administer for quite a
> while, but clearly Linux is the direction the industry is moving.
>
>
> >
> > Ken wrote:
> > > Occassionally there will be a new technology that allows newcomers to
> > enter
> > > the market: minicomputers, microprocessors, local area networks, the
> > > internet.  Thus we had DEC, Microsoft, Apple, Compaq, etc.
> >
> > The challenge is attracting new users and new customers. Someday,
> newcomers
> > may outgrow their lower-end solutions. After they have clustered
> together
> a
> > bunch of Linux or NT / W2K boxes, how happy are they and their customers
> > with that? Did they do a great job with a great product, or is their
> > always-on infrastructure always on fire, and some part of your support
> staff
> > is always spending its time fighting fires? At what point do these
> companies
> > ask if there is a better platform, and what that might be? I think that
> this
> > is part of HP's strategy with Linux, in the belief that customers will
> > outgrow that approach, and what a bigger box running a more slowly
> changing
> > OS. Can the e3000 be that box? Why or why not?
>
> No.  There is very little reason for new customers to move to the 3000.
> They would be locked into one hardware vendor and have very little choice
> of
> software (no Oracle, e.g.).  There is no way for HP to attract software
> vendors to the native 3000 interface.  HP could add on all the features to
> allow all the Unix applications to run on MPE.  Then MPE would have all
> the
> same features _and problems_ as HP-UX.  Why would a customer choose MPE
> over
> HP-UX? Or Solaris? Or AIX?
>
> If MPE were available as a little add-on to HP-UX, would you use it there?
> No?  Then why would people using Unix applications want to run them on
> MPE?
>
> If they want to move away from Unix applications, why MPE rather than
> AS/400?
>
> Sorry, but the moment has passed.  At one time, MPE was viable.  I cannot
> see any way now.  Clearly, HP management has come to the same conclusion.
>