CSY seems to be taking a number of steps to honor it's promises of
investment protection and loyalty.   In my opinion however the plan really
fails in one area and that is the policy to not sell HP e3000 hardware  or
_software_ after October 31, 2003.   I refer specifically to the following
statements.

<quote>
MPE/iX add-on software products will be available for purchase until October
31, 2003. This includes the HP e3000 software products that support our
databases, IMAGE/SQL and Allbase/SQL as well as a host of other software
products that support key functionality on the HP e3000 such as:

o High Availability products such as Mirrored Disk/iX, Cluster/iX, and
SharePlex
o Internet and Interoperability products found in the WebWise suite
o Language and Application Development products such as Cobol II, C, Fortran
77, Pascal, and Java (bundled)
o Performance and Backup products such as GlancePlus and TurboStore/iX
http://www.hp.com/products1/mpeixservers/future/roadmap.html

<quote>
Will I be able to purchase add-on software products after Oct 31, 2003?
No. Add-on MPE/iX software products will not be available for purchase after
Oct 31, 2003.
http://www.hp.com/products1/mpeixservers/future/faq/2002_2003.html#software

I can understand that HP might have manufacturing and inventory issues
supplying hardware into 2006 so I am going to put that question aside for
the moment.   But what is the problem with software?    Surely the revenue
from software sales more than covers the costs of licensing and
distribution.

Several alternative solutions come to mind.   HP doesn't have to make a
decision about how to do it but it seems to me that the right thing for HP
to do would be to announce immediately that HP, perhaps in cooperation with
the HP e3000 user and/or vendor community, will establish a means to make
MPE/iX system software available for a reasonable price after October 31,
2003.

I may be dreaming here but a real "stand up" thing for HP to do would be to
release all add-on software to, at minimum, the user base currently on
support.  It might be an inducement for unsupported users to get back on
support.   Think of this software as part of the investment protection and
transition support program.   I know that having a selection of compilers
and utilities is a real help when transitioning to new applications and
systems.

Cortlandt Wilson
Cortlandt Software
(650) 966-8555

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