Daniel Kosack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
>   MPE needs a new look.  It needs to make a comeback soo outrageous and
> extraordinary that people will be willing to switch to it.
 
Perhaps, but this would only be possible with a strong push from HP.
Given the Apollo DOMAIN experience, and the desire of the company to
push toward Unix (HP-UX) and the need of the company to find some answer
to the threat of Windows NT, HP devoting the resources and time to make
this happen seems an unlikely scenario.
 
> We need to see HP3000 workstations, smaller boxes that run MPE on the
> desktop, but still have the RISC chips and nice XTerminals.  These little
> MPE boxes should interface seemlessly to the databases of the 'big
> brother' HP 3000s, share binaries, and even NFS mount transparently. With
> more smaller MPE boxes out there, more people will by them for
> affordability, and thusly spread the knowledge base of MPE to more people.
 
This definitely particularly unlikely!  Digital had (and actually still
has) this strategy and architecture with OpenVMS.  "Seemlessly
integrated" OpenVMS workstations (either VAX or Alpha) run beautifully
in VMSclusters, but who's buying them?  A smaller and smaller group of
VMS faithful.
 
For better or worse, if MPE (and OpenVMS) are to survive and prosper,
they must do so on the basis of serving "foreign" clients (and
sub-servers) well.  This is what DEC's "NT Affinity" program is all
about, and what 1/2 the development effort has devoted to over the last
few years.
 
 
--
Jonathan Eunice                       Director, client/SERVER Companion
[log in to unmask]   |   http://www.illuminata.com/people/jse.html