This is a good idea.  In fact, our firm began such a service 2 years ago
and have been benchmarking various attributes of such a service.

We currently have a large volume retailer on the e3000 in our data
center coming in over a persistent VPN connection.  This provides some
level of security and constant access.

We have learned a great deal about this kind of ASP service and would be
willing to share with those who may  be interested.

Phil Robinson
The Milltown Group
Canada

-----Original Message-----
From: OpenMPE Support Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Neil Harvey
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 2:11 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Customer Eval


Here in Africa, we believe in Safety in Numbers. Animals and People tend
to herd together, so that when one or two on the edges are picked off by
predators, the whole is only slightly affected.

My suggestion is that OpenMPE, or some other body or bodies, offers a
Homesteading Service.

By all accounts and experience, continental USA (and parts of Europe)
are effectively on a LAN, with 2mb and greater bandwidth becoming common
in offices and homes. My experience with the N series HPe3000 is that a
single system (or a small bank of them) will handle the workload of many
smaller systems with ease. I understand that there may be conflicts with
accounts names, third party software vendors, versions etc, but I
believe managing this would be a lesser task than migration.

So it should be possible to deliver a homesteading service on an ASP
basis, where the client pays for a steady signal, a bit like people in
the NE USA pay for their electricity. (Maybe we should wait a few months
before using this analogy ;) )

Maybe the telephone system would be a better analogy - I use this when
selling the merits of ASP to my prospects. Whenever talk turns to our
technology (and it usually does when IT people are in the meetings), I
ask them what they expect when they pick up their telephone receivers.
They reply "dial tone". I ask them how often they are disappointed, and
they rarely ever are. Then I ask if they have the faintest idea how the
phone company delivers and sustains that dial tone, what hardware and
software they use, how old the switches are, how old the cables, where
they buy their services from, when last they upgraded their systems,
what version of database and operating systems they use. Usually at this
point, I see lights come on in the eyes of the business people, and some
shifting and wriggling on the seats of the IT people. Of course, when IT
people embrace the ASP model, it has an great success rate.

Of course some of these homesteaders would have to be persuaded to part
with support dollars on a monthly basis, or at best, channel their
current support funds to the ASP service, but this would simply be
another obstacle to be overcome.

Some revenue from this operation could be turned into an Emulator
project, the money would be needed on an ongoing basis and could come
out of cash flow.

I realise that there are many more obstacles to overcome, but the
principal might work, I believe.

I have seen our own customers embrace the ASP model that we provide, and
the relief is almost tangible when they realise that they are going to
be able to focus their energy on business, and not ever changing IT.

An emulator funded directly by the people most dependent on it probably
has a higher chance of succeeding.

And a new business could be born.

Regards

Neil


-----Original Message-----
From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 18 August 2003 20:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Customer Eval


Gavin writes:

> Terry writes:
>  > I have been listening lately.
>
>  A lot of us have been listening to a lot of customers lately I think.
>
>  > My one HP3000 client hired some CPA's to do
>  > an analysis of what to do with 5 year TOC and various risks
> associated  > with it.  They were looking at the following scenarios:

> >  > 1.  Homestead
>  > 2.  Migrate code to Psuedo MPE
>  > 3.  Rewrite from Scratch
>  > 4.  Rewrite after Migrate
>  > 5.  Package Solution with changes
>  >
>  > Homesteading was the least risky and the least costly while the
Package
>  > solution was the most risky and the most costly.
>
>  I'm not surprised that Homesteading came out #1, though I'm somewhat

> surprised that, even after investigation, a "Package Solution" wasn't
higher
>  on the list.

Gavin writes exactly what I was going to write, if I had found the time.
My ordering, based on our experiences of our prior customers moving off
of the HP3000, would be this order for least risk and least cost:

 1.  Homestead [short to medium term solution, virtually no cost]  2.
Package Solution (as is) [long range solution. moderate cost]  3.
Package Solution (with changes) [long range solution, high cost]  4.
Migrate code to Psuedo MPE [highly risky, likely very costly]  5.
Rewrite from Scratch [highly risky, likely very costly]  6.  Rewrite
after Migrate [highly risky, likely very costly]



Otherwise, I so completely agree with Gavin that let me just repeat here
again what he wrote:

>  For customers where a quality 3rd party vertical application  exists
> (on any platform) that is at least a reasonable fit for their
> business, I think it's going to be the way that most customers
> eventually  go.  Obviously if there's nothing out there that's even
> close to how you
run
>  your business, or the only realistic option is something like SAP
> which may  be totally unacceptable for cost and complexity reasons,
> they it's not  really an option at all.
>
>  > They would choose homesteading if they felt that Homesteading was a

> > longterm solution.  At the moment they are leaning towards Migrate
> to a  > Psuedo MPE environment but probably not until after 2006.
>
>  After listening to customers over the last few months, I now believe
> that  80% (+/- 10%) of existing MPE users will be "homesteading" in
> that they
will
>  still be using their 3000s in production in 2007, past when HP
> (currently)  plans to drop support for (most of) their customers.
>
>  But for most people it *isn't* a long term solution.  Ultimately most

> will  move to something else, but many will do it only because they're

> forced to  by changes in their business or because they can't afford
> to keep the 3000  running any more.  Quite a few (many of the smaller
> customers) will finally  make the transition catastrophically when the

> 3000 dies and can't be  resurrected, or the backup tapes can't be
> read, or it turns out that the  last backup was done in 1995 :-)

Wirt Atmar