A while ago I asked Dick Watt, VP & General Manager of HP's
Computer Systems Organization, some questions about
OpenDesk.  He suggested I communicate with other OpenDesk
users via the advocacy group, Interex's SIG Email.  I
recently subscribed to the SIG Email list and found that
there were only 24 others subscribed.

I am urging all OpenDesk users to subscribe to the SIG Email
list.  I would like to find out what everyone's plans are
regarding OpenDesk.  My question to Dick Watt asking "Why is
HP porting OpenMail to Windows NT and not MPE/iX?" was not
answered and I would like to use the advocacy group SIG Email
to try and get this question (and others that you may have)
answered by HP.

There are two ways to subscribe to the SIG Email list.  One, send
an email message to [log in to unmask] and put "subscribe
sigemail-l" (without the quotes) in the body of the message.  The
second way is to use Interex's website, the URL is:
http://www.interex.org/sources/listservers.html

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Here is the text of my question to Dick Watt and his answer:

Question: I would like to know what are HP's plans for OpenDesk.
We have been a longtime user (back to the days when it was called
HPMAIL).  I was pleased when HP made significant enhancements and
renamed it to OpenDesk (giving me hope that the enhancement for
OpenMail would be brought to OpenDesk).  Now I've heard a rumor
that it will no longer be enhanced.  Is this true? Because HP
used OpenDesk for their internal email, we were almost assured
that it would be enhanced.  I recently found out that HP has
switched to OpenMail and is also porting OpenMail to NT.
According to HP's sales literature "OpenMail is HP's enterprise
communications technology.".  How come it's not being ported to
MPE/iX?  The HP3000 is our enterprise server, so we don't to buy
an HP-UX or NT box and put OpenMail on it.

Answer: Thanks for your question.  HP plans to continue offering
and supporting OpenDesk, including provding any patches or bug
fixes as necessary.  However, we are not planning to make
additional enhancements to it.  As I've noted in my reply to a
similar question, HP has outlined several paths that customers
can take -- staying with OpenDesk and its current feature set,
adding new features with the help of consultants, or migrating to
HP's OpenMail solution with HP's help.  We also suggest that
customers communicate with other OpenDesk users via the HP
OpenDesk customer advocacy group, Interex's SIG Email, to share
ideas about how best to address their electronic messaging needs.

+------------------------------+------------------------------+
|  Jim Royce                   |         S.R.J.C.             |
|  Mgr, Systems & Programming  | [log in to unmask] |
|  Santa Rosa Junior College   |   Voice: (707) 527-4428      |
|  1501 Mendocino Avenue       |     Fax: (707) 524-1542      |
|  Santa Rosa, CA  95401  USA  |                              |
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