Winston writes:

> Although I regularly read 3000L I have very rarely participated in the
>  discussions.  

I actually think that that's a mistake, too. Your comments and perspectives 
clearly carry a great deal of weight and would be appreciated as often as you 
care to give them.



>  Having said all of that, let me now also say that I understand your
>  concerns.  Believe me, I do.
>  
>  So let me give you my perspective on the executive communications that
>  have taken place in the past months.   There have been many
>  communications, press releases, quotes in interviews, etc., that have not
>  appropriately mentioned the HP e3000.  This is NOT by design.  I guarantee
>  it.  This has been caused by a number of factors that I’ll try and
>  explain.  This is not intended to say it’s acceptable, it’s not, but
>  rather just to provide some facts to the emotional discussions.
>  
>  I believe the biggest cause for some of the miscommunication is related to
>  the Reinvention of HP.  In the past HP was a very distributed,
>  diversified, company of many product lines.  Each product line was wholly
>  responsible and did not interact often with other product lines.  Each had
>   it’s own market strategy, communication plans, sales, etc.  Each product
>  line communicated entirely about itself.  This led to many problems in how
>  HP interacts with customers.  HP has been viewed as having fantastic
>  products but very hard to work with.    So, over the past year HP has been
>  focused on restructuring the way we interact with customers, market our
>  products, etc.  Customer facing organizations are taking on responsibility
>  for all HP products.   This has caused the number of HP employees that
>  need to be very familiar with our HP e3000 business strategy to grow
>  considerably.  In the past, communication about the 3000 was very
>  contained within CSY.  Now many parts of HP are involved in advertising,
>  marketing, and executive speech writing, etc.   Now, combine that with a
>  company of >80,000 employees, and remember that the HP e3000 is relatively
>  a smaller product line than HP-UX and HP Netservers, and the result is
>  that you have miscommunication about the platform.
>  
>  Even prior to the recent 3000L discussion threads, my staff and I have
>  been working closely with other parts of HP to ensure that the HP e3000 is
>  appropriately positioned   I have had many personal conversations with HP’
>  s top executives and they are all very supportive of the HP e3000.  They
>  recognize the history, value the product, even more so value the
>  customers, and truly feel bad about the miscommunication.   I feel
>  confident that you will see a difference in the coming months.  

I personally truly look forward to that. 

As you know, I mentioned just the other day that I've been getting a little 
grumpy of late about the fact that questionaire and survey after survey that 
comes from HP often ask you which operating system you use -- and have long 
lists of operating systems for you to choose among, with MPE/iX virtually 
always absent. I always scratch that whole section, using a red pen, and 
write "MPE/iX from HP" in the margin somewhere. It's having to do it more and 
more commonly nowadays that's making me grumpy.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that marketeers from the CSPP 
program call up reasonably regularly and want to ask me detailed questions 
about our plans for implementing the newest features of the latest HP-UX 
release. When I tell them that we only use MPE/iX, they not only immediately 
lose interest, but are clearly unsure as to what MPE/iX is.

While I'll probably come across as the heavy in all of this, I took 30 
minutes this evening and put together the form of the ad that I would run if 
it were up to me: it would be straightforward and plain-speaking. And it 
would say what I think most people on this list are saying or thinking. And 
it would understandable to anyone, inside or outside of HP, as to its several 
motives.

The mockup of that ad is at:

           http://aics-research.com/wsjad.html

None of us have any desire to do harm to HP, and most especially CSY. It's 
just that sometimes a kick in the pants is good for everyone, especially if 
it's well deserved.

Wirt Atmar