Hmmmm, Major Customers of HP still using HP3000 systems...

Longs Drugs, Hertz, Navy Dept,AllState with a combined HP3000 systems of 400 to 800 systems.
Not to mention large healthcare customers, Tufts, HPHC,BCBS of TN, NH, NE,AR,IA,CO..... that have a combined 80 LARGE systems N-Class or 99X ... Yeah these companies cannot see the HP3000 hanging around waiting for source code, but IF they all made the decision to leave HP as a vendor that would make a difference in the way HP makes these decisions.

Some of these companies have and will make decisions to stay with HP because they have not seen the light. I wonder what is going to happen come 12/31/2006 when the other shoe drops and HP makes the second major decision blunder.... Only HP knows for sure... Maybe we will just have to wait for that one.





-------------- Original message from Brian Duncombe <[log in to unmask]>: --------------

At 12:33 AM 8/25/2005, Wayne R. Boyer wrote:

Wirt,

Unfortunately, I think that you are probably about 95%+ accurate in your
statements.  I effectively gave up on HP and OpenMPE a while ago now and have been
moving myself into new and different worlds.  That's why I have been
essentially absent from HP3000-L etc. for a while now.

I wholeheartedly agree!



The NO source code etc. policies must change if HP has any intention of
helping the HP-3000/MPE customer base.  Maybe Mike Pavinen has the best of
intentions but is he the decision maker?  I doubt it.  If not, then who is????
Further, what REASON does this unknown decision maker provide for the NO source code
policy?

I doubt that HP has any intention of helping the HP-3000/MPE customer base in any meaningful way.  I believe that Wirt is correct in his assessment that having Mike Pavinen as a spokesman is an excellent strategy.  MikeP is a well respected member of our community and a guy who is probably trying his best to make this as painless as possible.  With MikeP as the frontman HP appears earnest.  If WinstonP were saying the exact same thing, we would all be taking his statements with a large grain of salt; although, there was a time when we would have believed him.

While I don't know HP's reason for no source code, I could hazard a few guesses:
- they own most of the code and it is their's to do with as they please
- the logistics of opening up the source code is probably a similar effort to porting MPE to IA64
- it is in HP's business interest not to have MPE hang around now that they have made the fateful decision
- they hope that they will get at least some of us to use their other platforms

Purely hypothetically, what would happen when a popular vendor such as VESoft, Robelle or Adager decides that the effort of continuing in the MPE community is not worth the effort.  One or more of those three are vendors to a significant portion of the hp3000 community.  I seriously doubt whether these vendors would release the source code to one of their products as they exit the arena to go on to other things.  Why expect HP to do otherwise.



In my opinion, the 'temperature' of this topic needs to be constantly
increased until it becomes a very hot issue for HP.

I would guess that our concerns are genuinely shared by HP folk like MikeP and JeffV.
I would guess that the next level up the food chain at HP are sympathetic to our plight.
Beyond that, I doubt that we are even a ripple in the pond.
Unlike the "Boston Tea Party" over Image when we had a "Bill and Dave" kind of person running the ship, we now have someone who is purely interested in the next quarter's results.  I doubt that the hp3000 is a material item in those results and customer satisfaction seems to have disappeared some time ago at the corporate level.  I doubt that the temperature can be raised all that high any more.  The one chance would have been one or more major customers of HP yelling but that didn't happen back when and I don't know if HP has any major hp3000 customers anymore.

Not to put too fine a point on it but item #1 in Bill and Dave's version of the HP Way was PROFIT.  They believed that customer satisfaction was the road to profit.  Obviously there is a new breed that doesn't and who can argue with results, HP is not Bill and Dave's company any more.



Wayne Boyer

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