There is a big difference in my mind between being "bleeding edge" and being
"leading edge". Between yelling "follow me" while jumping off a cliff
without looking and really leading. The argument about the HP3000's role in
the industry has been going on between CSY and its more vocal customers for
at least the last decade. At one time HP proudly talked about Customer
Focused Engineering as its strategy for moving technology to the HP3000. To
some of us it just seemed like an excuse for following the pack rather than
leading. More recently, the MBA-influenced Business Case argument has been
used. Still basically an excuse for following the pack. A classical
risk-averse strategy. A strategy that, IMNSHO, is doomed in this rapidly
changing world we live in.

I don't want to see CSY throwing resources at the next 8-track. But I do
want to see it lead in the areas of online and offline storage products,
high availability solutions, ease of maintenance, interoperability, etc.
without having to justify each project by producing a list of customers who
will buy it. Why? Because these are areas of known importance to its
customers.

I'm a little more sanguine about this now than I was a few years ago. CSY is
now taking a few risks. Witness Open Skies. And, more importantly, not
retreating back into its shell when things don't go right - as it seemed to
do when, for example, the port of R3 was abandoned by SAP after CSY had
apparently committed significant resources. Witness first the Open Market
mess followed by Netscape Fastrak. CSY picked itself up, wiped off its
bloody nose, and is now offering to support Apache. Of course, the endless
bureaucracy to get to this point ..... but that's for another rant.

I think CSY is generally moving again and in the right direction.
Unfortunately, it will probably never be fast enough or exactly in the right
direction for some of us.

John Burke
[log in to unmask]

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Donna Garverick
Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 1999 1:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: lastest technology


Lee Gunter wrote:

> Richard's post is interesting (and timely) because I just met our new HP
> sales rep, yesterday, and his explanation for this phenomenon was very
> similar to  Richard's.  He described the delay in rollout of new
> technologies to the 3K as a function of MPE's efficiency -- that the care
> and feeding of Unix and the resources it typically gobbles in comparison
to
> MPE require much more attention to that platform (patches, upgrades, etc.)
> as newer technologies are rolled for it.

(donning my sig sysman hat, again...)
you know, we've heard this for years from hp.  and at least for me, this
explanation is starting to wear kinda thin.  personally, i don't think being
on
the 'bleeding edge' is critical but on the other hand the amount of time it
takes from product announcement to mpe delivery is much too long.  i want
some
of this 'new' technology -- and while it's still relatively 'new'.  how long
did it take fibre channel to get brought over to mpe, for instance?  (...and
i
won't go into a rant about hardware prices for mpe... (aren't we all lucky?)
:-)  i wonder if there are any cases of folks (companies) wanting to buy an
mpe
system (vs unix) but elect to buy unix because they can get the hardware?
it
would rather seem that hp's stance on bringing new hardware technology to
mpe
is backward thinking -- especially considering mpe's revitalization.
(/hat)            - d

--
Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]

>>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<