John Dunlop wrote:

>I just happened to look back through what HP said in March
>2001 (3 years ago exactly - see http://www.hp3000links.com)
>compared to what they said in November 2001 and one phrase struck me :
>
>"More than half of the Fortune top 25 customers user the
>e3000 as part of their mission-critical infrastructure, as do
>more than 25 percent of the top 100 credit unions."
>
>I'm sure HP had insisted that the client base for the HP3000
>was declining fast and was of no particular significance.
>[snipped]

There is nothing strange about this. A company that is trying
to sell a product is going to continue to put the most positive
spin on the current situation to keep from creating a mass
stampede away from the product. This can be happening while
at the same time major vendors (ISVs) might have communicated
to HP through some NDA channel that they had decided to leave
the HPe3000 platform. Given that ISV driven sales were accounting
for most of the HPe3000 new-business I can imagine what hearing
such news would do to the HP-CSY brain trust.

Now, we can all argue that HP didn't do enough, or did all they
could to keep the HPe3000 a viable product. But, what we can't
argue about is that commodity servers are very fast, inexpensive,
and are redefining what the datacenter looks like. I believe
HP-CSY saw the handwriting on the wall and decided to pull the
plug while they could still muster some resource to help folks
migrate.

And even though I too am frustrated by the lack of progress in
the open-MPE space, I am confident that many HP-CSY folks have
agonized over what is best for customers and have gone to bat
for all of us on many issues. Many vCSY folks have let their
interest in the HPe3000 community come before their own career
path choice(s).

duane 'my xeon eats your hpe3k for lunch' percox

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