Hello Friends:

Jeff Vance asks:

>Does the OpenMPE community believe it is the best use of CSY's time
>to try to get most of MPE into official Open Source vs. other
>activities, such as: dotting the i's and crossing the t's with
>future MPE licensing models, working out pricing and distribution
>details for a more open MPE license, working out a model for enabling
>3rd parties to provide s/w support for MPE, cleaning up MPE for
>a "final" powerpatch, etc.

There's another, much more important activity: Getting MPE into the
hands of an organization that will grow the environment's potential.
Customers who will not migrate -- a serious enough portion of the
multi-billion dollar 3000 business still flying under HP's flag --
need a new MPE owner, not a trusty steward who will ensure nothing
gets mislaid for the next four years. There's still growth potential
in this market, if someone can address a sizable installed base.

>I am not saying we are or will do these
>tasks, but they are on our lists and we will need to allocate people
>if we want to complete them.

I'd like to see this MPE-Image transfer become a part of CSY's lists.
Holding onto a discontinued product, for the express reason that "we
don't think anybody can do it as well," fails to serve the needs of
the customers who are not moving away. I leave it as a study of
business strategy for others to observe why HP's holding onto
MPE-Image might be otherwise so important.

>Nothing comes for free. Priorities need to be clear so that CSY
>focuses on the most important activities.

Executing such a release of MPE-Image, now, could save HP millions of
dollars, pehaps billions. Judging by the customers' wan appetite for
change over the first year of the Transition, it appears unlikely
that sales of alternative HP servers to the dismissed MPE-Image
customers could have the same kind of impact on HP's bottom line.

All this doesn't mean that migration advocates won't have their
business opportunities. It's just that this future gives customers a
true choice -- to stay with a platform that still has growth in its
future, or leave for the open systems world of commodity computing.
At the moment, MPE-Image is fighting with one hand tied behind its
back.
--

Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 NewsWire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP 3000
http://www.3000newswire.com
512.331.0075 -- [log in to unmask]