From conversations I've had with HP the 3000 makes a slim profit at this
time. The problem is large users such as State Farm are already leaving
the platform (doesn't sufficiently fit the needs they have) and once the
"large customer" base is gone, will there be enough left to support
continued operation? For this reason and several/many others, the answer
from HP's perspective was no.

Another problem: will companies contract with a company smaller than HP
for support? Each company has their own reasons for saying yes and
others no.

Again, from the conversations I've had with HP, they have not decided on
"option 1" below. There are active discussions regarding why, how, when,
who, etc. to license MPE/iX beyond 2006. No decision has been reached as
the main focus (and at this time properly so, from HP's perspective) is
on migration customers (after all folks, they do need to stay in
business, selling 9000's et al).

By the way, MPE/iX may be licensed to a "for profit" concern(s) after
2006, so the non-profit groups are not the only ones in the running.

"John R. Wolff" wrote:
>
> The problem is not just getting someone to buy CSY.
>
> The real problem is getting HP to actually make a definitive decision about CSY:
>
> 1) Kill & Bury it (Default decision and so far most likely; i.e., just run out the clock)
> 2) Release and License it to a non-profit user based group (Interex, OpenMPE, etc.)
> 3) Sell CSY to some business entity and salvage stockholder asset value
> (Apple, Dell, IBM, some large stake customer such as State Farm, etc.)
> 4) Package it with DEC legacy VMS products and salvage stockholder asset
> value (assumes that merger goes through and is similar to Option #3)
>
> HP's track record seems to prefer option #1.  The calculator division is a
> good example.
>
> If CSY is really a money loser than it would make sense to saddle a
> competitor with it using the "proven" Compaq model that is very popular
> with HP management at this time.

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