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From:   Ron Seybold
Sent:   Tuesday, July 23, 1996 9:48 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Cc:     Geiser, Joe
Subject:        Re: More demise of the 3000?
 
Hello Friends:
 
Joe Geiser wisely states he was "a bit skeptical of the "fall of the 3000"
posts," but then goes on to say "I read in Information Week IBM targeting
3000
 
<< snipped >>
 
Companies are after the HP 3000 business because it's the most loyal and
most intelligent set of IT managers in business. Applications drive system
decisions. You write 'em, or buy em, but choosing them is the horse that's
in front of the cart. Whatever the market can do to encourage continued
development on HP 3000s will be the best counter to the IBM AS/400
marketing effort. To date, few companies have responded. Three of the four
reference accounts converted more than two years ago.
 
Ron,
 
You are indeed correct in what you say.  The purpose of my message
is to get out the fact that HP seems to be talking two stories and
we as HP3000 owners and managers are not being told the complete
truth here.  Note the operative word is *seems*.
 
We tried to migrate our HP applications to an AS/400 several years
ago - we had a CIO (before I was elevated to that spot) who came
from many blue shops, and was determined to get the 3000 out
of here.
 
IBM came in with many promises - "We have filters for your COBOL,
We can translate your VPLUS, we'll write filters for your Transact,
TurboIMAGE?  No Problem!"
 
All of this was bull.  To migrate a 3000 app to an AS/400 takes quite
a bit of work.  You have to dump TurboIMAGE for the OS/400 data-
base, you have to dump VPLUS for SDA (or whatever they're using
now), and in your programs?  Every Image and VPLUS intrinsic
needs to be rewritten or library put together to intercept and
translate (IBM's answer), which slows things down.  If you have
Transact or Rapid - it's a rewrite.  The lesson?  Don't fall for the
"filter" story - if you get migraines now (like I do) - your prescription
for Fiorinal or Imitrex will need to be tripled, and if you don't, your
doctor will be prescribing one or the other for you.  (s)he might
even throw some Xanax in for good measure...
 
So please don't get me wrong...my intention is to bring to light,
the words that are being attributed to the executives within HP.
We, the people who have invested money, hours of training,
and years of our lives working with the 3000, need to know if
all of that is going up in smoke over the next five to ten years,
or if HP will continue to support the most stable box it has for
business applications, and one of the most stable in the
marketplace today - or are we to start brushing up on UNIX
and re-educate ourselves, and start re-evaluating our long-
range plans for hardware.
 
From a management perspective, as well as a technical pro-
fessional, this is getting a little scary - but I'm willing to wait
until the Management Roundtable at HPWorld, and hear for
myself, what HP is doing.  I would expect, since HP does
monitor this list, that HP will have concrete answers that we
can "hang our hat on".  All I personally want, is for HP to
be honest and open with us - what are the plans for the
3000?  Straight and honest answers (which is supposed to
be "the HP Way", right?)
 
Joe