Denys said,

> This thread is astounding, to me at least.  Interex has been
> putting on Solutions Symposiums for years.  These events are and were
> totally focused on MPE, with the added bonus of a high labbie
> to user ratio.  This conference started as IPROF over a decade ago
> with the first couple held at HP in Cupertino.

Not really true. The Solutions Symposium was actually developed separate
from IPROF. Bill Lancaster gets most of the credit.

<-- snip -->

>
> Now, we get people complaining about HP World being too big
> and wanting an MPE-only event.  Why did they not attend either one of
> the Solutions Symposium?  What is wrong with this picture?
> Where is the disconnect?
>

This is what I was referring to when I said Interex was leaving MPE people
in the same way MPE people were leaving Interex. I do not know what is
happening, but here is what we are seeing:

- Attendance at the Solutions Symposia (minus vendors and consultants) was
disappointing.
- Attendance at HPWorld of people interested in MPE was disappointing. [I
was told that only about 80 of the HPWorld 2003 attendees indicated interest
in MPE. There was no MPE-IMAGE session with more than 40 non-HPQ attendees.]
- We know that large numbers of HP e3000 users have yet to decide on a
future strategy.

<-- snip -->

>
> So, bottom line here, what do you really want?  (Yes, I know,
> I want my MPE.  :)  )

Clearly people have voted with their feet, wallet, etc. that what we are
currently doing does not meet their needs. To repeat from Denys, what do
people want?

This thread is also weird. It started out on HP3000-L and then was captured
by Jon Backus and turned into a thread on OpenMPE. We're all in this
together guys so I've cross posted this reply to HP3000-L.

John Burke