In message <v03007806af58682a5452@[206.225.46.10]>, Ron Seybold
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Hello Friends:
>
>While Roy Brown is 100 percent correct on HP 3000 growth (it's happening),
>the number of people receiving the Advisor has more to do with HP's mailing
>budget than the growth of the HP 3000. HP sends the Advisor to anyone who
>asks, a good practice for a marketing vehicle that promotes the HP 3000.
>But at 65,000 circulation, the Advisor gets sent to several times as many
>people (not systems) than any other HP publication. A marketing vehicle
>always gets the widest mailing. HP can't answer the question of how many
>3000s are in place because it's lost track of about 25 percent of them --
>because HP support contracts get dropped for older systems (or those run by
>self-maintainers or those using 3d party services).
>
Hi Ron.

I play 'em as they lie..... :-)

Looking again at the exact wording in the HP 3000 Advisor, it says
'65,000 customers'. Not 'copies', not 'recipients', not 'prospects', but
'customers'. So are you sure the circulation is that same 65,000, or is
that an assumption?

The nub of it is, how do HP define 'customers'? We get three copies of
it here, for three recipients, and we have one HP3000. So are we three
customers, or one?

If we didn't have an HP 3000, what would qualify us as customers? An
HP9000? A Vectra? A handheld? An oscilloscope? An HP Training course we
once took?

Harry Sterling, if you are out there, we know you said 'customer'.

But what, *exactly*, is a 'customer' for the purposes of that 65,000
count?
--
Roy Brown               Phone : (01684) 291710     Fax : (01684) 291712
Affirm Ltd              Email : [log in to unmask]
The Great Barn, Mill St 'Have nothing on your systems that you do not
TEWKESBURY GL20 5SB (UK) know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.'