X-no-Archive:yes
Since Ken's reply covered two different topics, I felt it best to make two
different replies. I hope that where my replies are incomplete, that others
will fill in what I have missed. I hope HP is listening.

HP ought to be able to do what IBM and MS are doing, selling something
proprietary; in fact, they are clearly doing so with their NetServer line,
if not the 9000s as well. AS/400 users are locked into one hardware vendor.
You wrote, no Oracle. Oracle will soon be desupported on MPE; is Oracle even
available on the AS/400?

Can MPE run Unix apps without being plagued by the same problems that Unix
is? I leave that to those with more experience in this area to answer. I
have heard that Oracle has been easier to run on the 3000 than on UNIX. I
know that I hear of less problems with Oracle on our 3000 than on our 9000.

Why choose MPE over a UNIX variant? How about the OS itself? How about how
it manages it's I/O subsystem, more efficiently, and more reliably?

Why run a UNIX app on MPE? Improved reliability over UNIX. And, if it is not
the only app on the box, less problems from those other apps. Less
likelihood of panics / aborts, memory leaks, security problems... And isn't
IMAGE itself an asset?

Why MPE instead of AS/400? POSIX compliance. Ports like Apache and SAMBA.
Maturity.

A number of products have been on the verge of extinction. "Getting It Right
the Second Time" is an interesting read in this regard. Just because the
market is ignoring you is no reason to give up.

Greg Stigers
http://www.cgiusa.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Hirsch [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 5:07 PM
To: Stigers, Greg [And]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: How does MPE sound?

<snip>
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.