At 4:10 PM -0800 11/6/03, donna garverick wrote:

>http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Business/SiliconInsider/SiliconInsider-1.html


At 7:07 PM -0700 11/6/03, Fred White commented on donna's report:

>Thanks Donna,
>
>Overall, a fine article but with more than a little poetic license:
...
>The original 3000 was not really designed for business. The main user
>programming language supplied was Fortran. Cobol wasn't released until
>the Fall of 1974 along with a vastly improved OS and the first release
>of Image which many of the first salesmen thought was some form of
>ISAM! Many of those same salesmen didn't have a clue about commercial
>data processing or the meaning of a collating sequence.
...
>Actually, Bill and Dave (bless their hearts and I knew them both) had
>very little to do with this second release. Lower level managers made
>the decisions. Bill and Dave, at that time, had much bigger fish to fry.
>
>The author apparently has forgotten that all HP divisions were profit
>centers which, for the most part, were run autonomously and independent
>of Corporate interference.
>
>I suppose, the author's version is more romantic than mine.



I agree with donna's enthusiasm.  This is, after all, the FIRST
"non-installed-base media" story that even comes close to mentioning
the potential that MPE-Image had (to paraphrase Lance Armstrong,
"It's Not About the Hardware).

I also agree with Fred's realistic view.  As our German-speaking
colleagues would say:

     Es ist noch kein Meister vom Himmel gefallen

(Things don't fall out of the sky already made; we must sweat
VERY hard to make them work at all.)


Given the choice between the insipid stories floating around (outside
of the installed base) and this particular narrative that donna
shared, there is no contest.  Naturally, all of us are still waiting
for a better story.  Does anyone know a good Storyteller Meister who can
do justice to MPE-Image?

Enjoy,

  _______________
 |               |
 |               |
 |            r  |  Alfredo                  http://www.adager.com
 |          e    |
 |        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
 |      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
 |    d          |  Adager Corporation
 |  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
 |               |
 |_______________|

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