There was an interesting op/ed article in Information Week saying that
if companies find a shortage of qualified IT people, they should
reconsider their selection process, and consider providing more
training. Perhaps our shops should consider sending more people to more
training more often; conversely, we might then get to see more and
better offerings from HP. Now, I would rather curl up with a good manual
than sit in a class, because manuals let me go at my own pace, but it
sure is hard to get everyone to leave me alone in my cube with a manual
for five days of self-paced training. And classes can force one to round
out one's understanding of a topic.

My copy of the HP Education Catalog only list one class each for MPE/iX
System Operations and System Management at our Boston / Burlington HP
Education Center (listed as Boston, actually in Burlington, for those
playing the home version of Jeopardy). Checking the web site, they are
offering Image admin in March. But HP tells me that there just isn't a
demand for MPE training in the area. FCC regulations (and moral
concerns) may prohibit me from expressing how I feel about this, but
suffice it to say that I am disappointed, since I can drive to
Burlington in about the same amount of time as I can drive to work, and
I would like to attend several of the classes offered, if only they were
offered here. If you are in the greater Boston area, and might be
interested in the "HP TurboIMAGE DBMS/3000 (Programmer option)" with the
additional two days of training on Database tools and access, and
Performance and design, please reply privately.

As for schools, I would think that interoperability could be a good
thing to learn. And were I a student, I might want to be able to say
that I have taken what I knew about Windows, and from their learned NT,
and from their learned UNIX, and from there learned MPE/iX, or something
like that. Then when I am interviewing, just maybe a potential employer
would think that I can once again take what I know, and leverage it to
learn something new, or at least new to me.

>----------
>> From "Terry O'Brien TDO" <[log in to unmask]>, on 11/29/97 12:40 PM:
><snip>
>> As long as we are doing a show of hands, would anyone care to "raise a
>> hand" describing any college or university that uses the HP3000 for
>> teaching.  I would love to see some hands.  Unfortunately, I'm afraid
>> that there are few, if any left and the available pool of
>> MPEiX/TurboImage talent will shrink.  And lack of available trained
>> HP3000 people is certainly a factor in some people's HP3000 hardware
>> planning decisions.  But like other HP3000 trends the past few years,
>> this is another one that could also be reversed.
><snip>