Earlier today I was cleaning out a storage area at the office, wanting to throw
some things out to make more room for new junk. I came across my stash of old
conference guides, amongst which I found copies of the ones for Montreal '83
and Washington '85. I was chairman of the former and a speaker at the latter.
Please bear with me as I reminisce and compare what was then to what is now.
The name for the 1983 conference was "HP 3000 IUG CONFERENCE 1983".
There were 64 vendors at the show, here is a short list of some you might
recognize:
Adager out of Apartment 248 in Antigua, Guatemala.
Bradford Business Systems
Collier & Jackson
Dynamic Information Systems Corp.
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Infocentre (now Speedware)
McCormack & Dodge
MCBA
Qualex Technology
Quasar Systems (now Cognos)
Smith, Dennis and Gaylord, Inc.
Tymlabs Corp.
Type Ahead Engine Company (now Telamon)
VESoft
Wick Hill Associates
The 2000 conference was a high water mark in vendor participation with over 200
vendors. Just to give you an idea, if we combine this year's HP and Interex
booths, that was the size of the entire Montreal vendor show in 1983.
But, you say, hold on there. In Montreal, all the vendors were pure 3000
vendors, in Philadelphia that was certainly not the case, I had to look for the
3000 vendors.
Well not really, the list of vendors in Montreal included many hardware
resellers and several consulting houses. In fact, I would say that only about
30-35 vendors were pure-3000 focused. In Philadelphia a lot of vendors had
3000 products as well as other platforms. Are you a single platform shop, with
just HP 3000s and terminals?
Ok, ok. Well all the papers were 3000 related and that's a lot more than was
the case in Philadelphia.
Well, in Montreal there were about 85 papers and all the papers were 1 hour.
There were numerous "soft" talks, you know management type stuff. The program
was divided into 8 categories:
Communications (7 talks including one by a certain N.M. Demos)
Data Base support (7 talks including one by a certain Bob Green)
Language Support (2 talks)
Management (The "soft" talks, 15 talks)
Peripheral Software ( 1 talk (I remember that we wanted more talks here but
didn't get any.))
Productivity Tool (4GLs) (6 talks including one by a certain Robert Karlin)
System Management (21 talks including some by a Jason Goertz and a Ross
Scroggs)
User Applications (25 talks including some by an N.M. Demos (again), a Terry
Floyd and a Eugene Volokh)
Compare this to 43 hours of pure MPE stuff at HP World 2000, no management
talks, no soft talks, no User application talks in number, just pure MPE talks.
I am not even including the SIGs and the BOFs in this figure.
The attendance in Montreal was something a little over 1,100 and it was over
10,000 in Philadelphia, 14,000 in San Francisco 99.
Could the users group have survived just catering to the HP 3000 users? Sure
it could. Would it have grown like it has? Nope. Would it have the influence
that it has now on HP. Well, maybe with CSY, but with HP as a whole, no way!
Also one must remember that Interex has had IPROF for several years, pure MPE
content, and in response to user requests, has morphed it into the Solution
Symposium and the SIG3000 meetings. It has also, over the years, supported
SIGIMAGE and SIGMPE amongst many other SIGs.
Other significant advocacy vehicles of Interex are the various improvement
ballots. These things are very visible within HP and if only more of you
participated in them, they would only get better.
But now to the matter at hand. Why should you join Interex or renew your
membership? I hope the above analysis has shown you the 3000 is very well
represented at the conferences and in other Interex activities. But beyond
this, advocacy is very much alive within Interex and HP is listening to you the
users, through your users group.
If you say, I don't need to join Interex because I never go to the conferences
or the symposium or the SIGs, that's one thing. But in this age of instant
communication, if you feel there is an issue that is not being addressed by
Interex, I urge you to send an email to Interex. You can always send a message
to the board of directors at [log in to unmask] and to give it more weight,
include your membership number. If you are just whining on this list and are
not a member of Interex, well you get about a thousand people listening to you
for one or two minutes (well, those that don't hit the delete key) and then
they quickly forget about it. Some of you complained about various aspects of
the conference. I bet none of you have sent any message to Interex about it.
I know none has come to the board. And whining on this listserv is only that,
whining.
I look at the recent effort to place an ad in the WSJ. If, instead of this,
everyone on this list who is not a member of Interex (about 900) became a
member and VOTED in the elections (which are coming up BTW,) and participated
in the various improvement ballots, that would make a bigger impact than the ad
and that impact would last much longer.
Advocacy is not a one time thing! It is an on-going effort that requires
dedication and commitment. The users group was originally created for this.
So what if there are disappointments and relapses? You don't give up. You
keep at it.
If you do not participate in your local RUG, don't be surprised when it goes
away.
If you do not participate in Interex, don't be surprised if it goes away or no
longer addresses your issues.
If you decide to not renew or not join in the first place, just remember:
apathy is the HP 3000's worst enemy.
Do not be surprised if the 3000 gets totally ignored by HP management.
Kind regards,
Denys. . .
Denys Beauchemin
Member of Interex Board of Directors.
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck Ryan [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2000 1:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interex
Good question, I told my manager last month not to bother renewing.
I guess it depends on if you use their site and/or believe that are acting
as an advocate for the 3000 community.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gary Sielaff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, September 28, 2000 1:21 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [HP3000-L] Interex
>
>
> Okay, there has been a lot of chat here about Interex
> and I just got a bill for $595.00 for another year of it.
> Tell me again what I need it for?
> Please (least I forget).
> tks
> Gary
>
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