At 10:56 PM 28/9/95 -0400, MoyerScott wrote:
>In article <[log in to unmask]>, Jim Wowchuk
><[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
>>Since there presently is such a dearth of object languages for HP3000,
[snip...]
 
>Perhaps this is why HP would love for us to think of MPE/iX as 'just a
>database server' platform and let the really hard client/server, object
>oriented, DCE, ADE, (insert your favorite subsystem), etc. stuff be
>handled by a real machine, HPUX.
>
 
Then again, perhaps it just indicates the reality for business -- most
factories don't use the latest titantium/moly metals with kevlar and carbon
filament and rare earth gasses, but work with steel, glass, granite, steam
and sweat, albeit improved and more productive over those same materials of
years ago.  Sure, any company may have an island of technical speciality,
and begrudgingly bear the inflated costs and high risk that go with it, but
a good bulk of their business activity may be no different than any other
company's.
 
#define SOAPBOX ON
 
MPE/iX doesn't need to be leading edge unless that's what's expected in its
market niche, and from my experience this is *not* the case, at least in
'contented' HP shops (chuckling to myself of the imagery of such shops).
No, I don't think the 3000 has ever been trend-setting, where its
competitors sit with furtive and depressed expressions around their
board-room table desparately trying to come up with parries to the lastest
blow from a new MPE feature.  Rather the 3000 has been a work horse,
strongly built, where 'innovation with reliability' was the watchword in
providing features needed now by their customers and that HP could deliver
without consulting international standards bodies, gurus and shamen, or a
five year post-doctoral research study.
 
RunTime shared libraries, advanced spoolers, journaled file systems, built
in power-fail detect/response, op sys level dbms, circular files, message
files, et cetera... these are traits we take for granted in a 3000 that much
of the industry is only coming to use now.  Does it really matter that
client/server is just a passing fad on the way to full object-oriented
systems which have yet to be defined?  Is 'X' really a means to make us all
more productive, or is simply another way to push more hardware and
software?  Aren't we glad that HP3000 wasn't sold as a 'Paperless Office
Server' (ok, it came close :)?  Shouldn't we be thankful that rather than
fad, HP CSY has for the most part made decisions based on the customer's
actual need, not on percieved view from media-manipulated market hyperbole?
Maybe F.U.D. is just a fad, and all will return to be as it was.
 
Can the market that's left though still support the HP3000?  Are there still
individuals willing to make a decision based on their analysis of a
situation for a solution yielding the greatest good, or do they yield
instead to the committee working hard only in trying to cover their ass?  If
the market has moved on, is HP doing the right thing trying to avoid being
left on the side of the road as the pack moves ever onward?  The road
everyone is travelling may not be leading to anywhere better, but who has
the courage to call them to stop?  As Bill Lancaster said in another note,
CSY should get some passion.
 
I don't know if HP can change the market perception though -- the computer
culture has changed so much in the last 20 years.  Gone are the days of
large EDP departments excepting in the biggest of companies, where once they
were essential to do any task.  We've all been too clever by half!  Everyone
recognizes if not wants, and needs the lower costs our technology has
provided.  Where once most businesses would cry, perhaps with hubris, "We
will do it our way", they are now forced to change their business practices
to meet the practices of some company in Atlanta, or Bristol or Adelaide or
wherever some anonymous programmers wrote their application package.
Conferences that were held for technicians to meet and share solutions,
discuss problems and goals and garner knowledge from among technoratti have
become dissemination points on a carefully constructed 12 step marketing
program complete with audio/visual/temporal displays, field research sales
analysis and cross-industry brand-awareness raising organizational
self-actualizing focus groups.  What would such groups want to do with
something as stable and dependable as the HP3000?
 
In my heart I still feel the 3000 is a good machine and while suffering from
a dearth of good applications, the changes with 5.0 are (for the most part)
making it better still.  I'm especially pleased at how HP is getting the Lab
people back in touch with the customers in an effort to be more responsive.
But making a better product is only one part of it.  As was said before,
technical excellence doesn't make a market leader.  My feeling is that HP
management need to sit down and really question why they should even want
the HP3000 in the world.  And when they've decided why, then they should
tell the rest of the world.  And not to do it in a quiet little news release
circulated only among the faithful, but to SHOUT IT OUT to the world - the
Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and every reputable paper not owned by Rupert
Murdoch (which is probably mutually exclusive anyway).
 
If HP can see no eason to continue with the 3000, then they need only
whisper it to this little group and word will spread fast enough.  If they
were to move IMAGE and maybe COBOL/iX to HP-UX and there probably won't even
be that much discontent (though the Response Centre could well need some
solid beefing up).
 
Should though, as seems to be now, they decide the 3000 is worthy, that it
has /dignatas/, that it need not be the poor ex-pro big brother of the
current College All-Star halfback, HP-UX, which is in its glory days now,
then after that they need to work their butts off at getting more packages
on to the 3K.  As little as I like Oracle, the Oracle/HP3000 relationship
looks good to me.  Customers want choice.
 
Okay, so who am I to presume I could tell HP management, the management
voted somewhere by someone at sometime as the best in the land?  Well I'm
no-one really, excepting a long time user and proponent of the HP3000.  It
would be no surprise to learn such HP management meetings had been held in
the past, many times.  But I've never heard the loud shouting nor the little
whisper.  So as it is I can only judge HP's committment by their actions so
far.... perplexing.
 
#undef SOAPBOX
 
Ta.
 
----
Jim "been doing too much phone canvassing" Wowchuk
Vanguard Computer Services     Internet:    [log in to unmask]
 _--_|\                        Post:        PO Box 18, North Ryde, NSW 2113
/      \                       Phone:       +61 (2) 888-9688
\.--.__/ <---Sydney NSW        Fax:         +61 (2) 888-3056
      v      Australia