Tom Brand wrote:

>
> I have no idea what is happening with most of the HP3000 shops who are
> leaving MPE, but most of the 3000 shops I work with are not migrating
their
> apps, they instead are abandoning the 3000 and the apps which run on it.
> What they are doing is investigating ERP or other packaged solutions on
> other platforms (most common among my clients is the IBM eSeries and
> Windows servers) and planning to write brand new ancillary programs to
> supplement whatever comes with the package. They will extract and transfer
> whatever data they can from their IMAGE databases, but have no plans to
> move their COBOL (or whatever) programs, and have no use for most of the
> conversion tools being sold by the platinum partners other than the
> database extraction tools.
>

Tom,

That's a point that touches on a lot of what was discussed in the breakout
sessions regarding the overall migration projects we are facing.  We were
repeatedly told to ask what will be done with each program that is currently
being run.  (Think miniY2K)

The test is not just what are we doing to migrate our core application (side
note: love the use of the singular "application" that was so prevalent in
all the speeches), but what is to be done with our "surround" code.

Using the new, hip, terminology of the e3_migrate world, it sounds as though
your clients are chosing not to migrate but instead to obsolete their
current applications and aquire new applications to meet current business
needs.  They are replacing their current core application (singular) with an
off the shelf or custom solution on a different platform; and are ONLY
evaluating the need to migrate surround code and warehoused data.  From the
models discussed in L.A., your clients are still potential customers for the
migration partners.

It's just that they would be single use, or limited use customers or service
based customers, as opposed to ongoing clients who would be purchasing
software and services now, paying support on that software for updates going
forward, and occassionally coming back for other projects in the future.
The ability to restore data from an old backup and apply the same cleanup
logic as was used at migration (plus any enhancements designed since then)
to make it usable for some reporting, would be a good example.

So, I'm guessing that your clients tend NOT to be purchasers of any of the
products from 19 of the top 20 e3000 application vendors, who have already
committed to a migration to another HP platform?  But, as you point out,
they are at least evaluating the migration tools that are available from the
partners, and would therefore (a) be at least a one time purchaser of the
products or services, and (b) would be giving the partners at least ONE shot
at getting their feet in the door at the clients' sites for future
consulting, or software sales on other platforms.

Like Alfredo's tagline says "this might be a big OOOPS for HP", but in the
short to middle run, it doesn't look that bad for tool vendors and
consulting firms who focus on the migration dollars with a mind to maintain
the relationships afterwards.

I'm not used to thinking on the scale of a fortune 100 company.  I see the
loss of customers to IBM as unacceptable, but I admit that the benefit
achieved by no longer investing money in the development and maintenance of
a second line of servers and their proprietary O/S may outweigh the loss of
income and goodwill associated with the missing customers.  I have to wonder
what the breakpoint is when making minor concessions to retrieve some of
that goodwill is worth some minor headaches going forward.  And, by that,
yes, I do mean coming up with a meaningful model for an emulator to run on
standard hardware so that clients who cannot migrate can work with another
entity to stay in business until the *natural* end of life of their
software.

Rs~

Russ Smith
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