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I have been monitoring the list for the last few weeks and I have seen
threads comparing NT and MPE in terms of hardware and such.

One has to be careful when comparing a computer which runs Windows VS a
computer which run MPE.  A desktop is very different from a large server.
 It would be like comparing a Greyhound bus (HP 3000) to a Corvette (NT).
 If the objective is to move 50 people from point A to point B, you will do
so much faster with a Greyhound bus than with a Corvette :).  There is also
the small matter of the price differential.

Now, if you want to compare Windows NT Server with MPE, you will have to
specify a hardware configuration which approximates the price of a
lower-end HP 3000.  Then the comparison will be fairer.  How does a $30,000
Windows NT server compare to a $30,000 HP 3000?  That is a more proper
question.  My guess is that the HP 3000 will still beat the NT hands down
for heads-down OLTP.  Also, you can scale MPE much higher than NT.
 However, Merced or McKinley might narrow the gap some.  Other things will
change also.

Comparing MPE to NT right now is not the end of the process.  It is
important to compare MPE with NT in how they will look next year, in two
years and further down the road.  I am glad to see that CSY is pushing
forward on the development of MPE.  But one must not rest on one's laurels.
 Right now, Microsoft is spending US$ 1 billion per year in Windows NT
development.  That is a huge sum of money.  That is commitment!  Microsoft
has bet the future of the company on Windows NT and they will not go down
without a fight.  Microsoft does nothing but Windows NT and the Office
suite.  The remainder is incidental.

For HP, MPE is not the do all, end all.  HP is doing a LOT of other things.
 They are heavily into HP-UX.  First and foremost however , HP is a
hardware company.  They sell printers, scanners, tape devices, PCs,
workstations, and all manners of servers.  HP supports and promotes Windows
NT.  They are selling a lot of servers and workstations which run on
Windows NT.  These NT servers and workstations unit sales probably surpass
the entire HP 3000 population every month or every couple of months.

I do not believe that it is in anyone's best interest to continue bitching
and moaning about NT.  I believe it would be better for everyone if instead
of taking shots, sometimes groundless at NT,  we spent more time figuring
out how to make MPE, NT and HP-UX co-exist constructively in the
enterprise.  To this end, we at Hicomp are working hard to make the HP 3000
take its place in the enterprise.  We will continue to work hard towards
that goal.

It saddens me every time I hear about an HP 3000 being replaced by a UNIX
or and NT box.  I can't help but think this would not be happening if the
HP 3000 played nicer with NT and UNIX.  The HP 3000 has undeniable
strengths, but it does not do everything, nor should it try to do so.

I think SAMBA/iX is a great move in that direction, but it takes so long to
get things into MPE.  I think ODBC is a very good thing, but it took far
too long.  It should not be this way.  MPE should be able to add these
features at a much more rapid pace.

When NT 5.0 is released next year, you will see some movement towards it.
 However, it will be slow at first.  The reason?  Y2K.  Companies have
spent and are spending a lot of money fixing this mess.  Nobody wants to do
a migration just as we are approaching that fateful date.  Better start
planning for after Jan 1, 2000.  A few months after that date, the
migrations will start.  At that time, Xeon will be in full swing, and
Merced or McKinley will be upon us.  There are other technologies which
will arrive at fruition at that time and you will see some amazing stuff.

Now we arrive at a very important question.  At the dawn of the new
millenium, the state of the art NT computer will be fairly different from
what it is now, and will have all sorts of peripherals hanging from it.  Do
we want the HP 3000 to emulate that?

I believe not.  I have always believed the main strength of the HP 3000 is
that it does not do a lot of things, but what it does do, it does it
reliably and extremely well.  There is elegance and strength in simplicity.
 This does not mean that the other things NT can do are not important.  It
does means there is a tremendous opportunity to have a constructive
co-existence of Operating Systems and that it is an opportunity which
should not be squandered.

So if people want to continue their OS-bashing, that is fine, but I for one
will continue to work to achieve better co-existence of MPE with UNIX and
NT.  I believe this will do more for MPE than the blind fanaticism
sometimes displayed on this list.

Kind regards,

Denys. . .

Denys Beauchemin
HICOMP America, Inc.
(800) 323-8863  (281) 288-7438         Fax: (281) 355-6879
denys at hicomp.com                             www.hicomp.com