I have to vote for returning the money. Not because I think anything at HP
Corporate has changed; rather, because I do not think that anything we can
do with the money will have an effect. At most, we will annoy a few people.
At worst, we might make Winston Prather's internal sell job more difficult.

No amount of ads or user initiated actions will alter HP Corporate's view of
the HP e3000 as a niche player. We need more applications that Corporate
America will buy. And that will generate sales of HP e3000s.

This is tough. There are no easy answers as to where new applications are
going to come from. However, HP Corporate clearly hurts the HP e3000's
prospects by relegating it to niche market status and not promoting it as at
least equal to HP-UX, Linux and NT for hosting mission critical
applications.

As I have said numerous times, it costs nothing in $ and only two seconds of
time to add "MPE/iX" to any recitation of the "HP-UX, Linux and NT" mantra.
And nothing bad can happen, unless HP Corporate thinks an analyst or press
person asking "What is MPE/iX?" is bad.

I'd give up my entire contribution if I could hear, preferably Carly
Fiorino, but I would settle for Ann Livermore, explain (not marketing
gobbledygook) why they steadfastly refuse to do this.

John Burke

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 10:42 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [HP3000-L] WSJ Ad contributions
>
>
> Since HP World, passions for placing the ad have clearly
> cooled off. While I
> was waiting for someone else to make the suggestion, I am now
> firmly in favor
> of returning all of the money that was collected -- with a
> sense of deep
> appreciation and thanks.
>
> If the group believes otherwise, I'm willing to change my
> mind again (this is
> actually the second time that I've suggested returning the
> money to the
> original contributors). Otherwise, I would recommend that the
> money be begun
> to be returned sometime later this week or early next.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>