Ray Shahan writes:

>And I say, that's just the point...hp left the selling of the
>3k to other folks.  Had hp kept on pushing (read, selling/marketing)
>the 3k as  the viable/reliable solution that it is (as they did many years
>ago) instead of trying to kill it off, it would have been installed
>in many more sites across the world, and have many more third
>part software packages available to run on it (MPE).

For many years it has been that software sells the hardware. Its
the solutions, not the particular hardware. Even when HP was
selling the system directly they had problems competing and
never generated a large installed base compared with their
competition.

We all forget, but HP was "last to the party" with a 32-bit offering
coming more than 10 years after the Vax. In that time, Prime, Wang,
DG, Perkin-Elmer all had capable 32-bit offerings that took market share.
And during that time, the Unix vendors began their rise to prominence
with Sun, et al.

IBM had a huge installed base that started with the Series 32
through the 38. When they came out with the AS/400 they finally got
it right and given their huge 3x installed base that was migrated to
the as/400 they had a platform that s/w vendors would target.

The HP 3000 was *never* a platform that many vendors would choose once
other options were available. I shudder to think what would have
happened had ASK not been as successful with ManMan. Its all economics.
It costs too much money to support multiple platforms so s/w vendors
pick those that are similar and/or have a large installed base.

And in the future, if MPE doesn't run on IA-64 then *no* vendor will
be able to sell it because it will cost too much compared to the
competitive offerings. Since they announced this port was 'second
half of this decade at the earliest' you have a scenario where ISV's
will be forced to leave the platform. They are not *stupid* at HP!
If the system was selling and making as much money as everyone
thinks it is they would have the resources to do the IA-64 port
before 'the second half of this decade'.

Lets face it. The HP e3000 has been and was always a bit-player in
the mid-range market. It never generated enough momentum to develop
into a targeted platform for the 'big-players'.

>A fine illustration of a company successfully
>manufacturing/marketing/selling a proprietary OS box is IBM
>and their AS400.

They have been experiencing declining sales of this platform. Their
large installed base has given it longer life prospects. I would
be nervous about selecting this platform today given the dynamics
I see in the marketplace.

duane percox
www.qss.com
qwebs.qss.com

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