Mark Wonsil wrote:
>
> previously Jim Alexander wrote:
> > A now moot question would be this:  How many more sales and how much
> > better would the quarter have been if a continuing path for MPE
> > through OpenMPE would have been in place?
> >
> > Was this a "missed" marketing opportunity?
>
> IBM's iSeries, a.k.a. AS/400 is much like the 3000 but with a
> much larger
> base.  IBM appears to be trying to combine all OSs with a VM
> approach and at
> least getting everything to one box.

IBM is doing some very interesting and sophisticated things with the iSeries
platform. Currently, you can run multiple independent instances of OS400 and
Linux in logical partitions on one box, with support for AIX instances
expected this year. You can even have an Intel card in the same system
running Windows server. Pretty impressive for something that is still often
thought of (incorrectly) as an RPG machine for accounting departments. OS400
is the only OS left on the market that has all the necessary functionality
for business IT in a highly integrated, powerful, flexible, easy to manage
package. Not only is it "much like the 3000", but it goes where we could
only dream of the 3000 going. HP does not have anything even close to offer
its HP 3000 users.

> I guess HP decided that the MPE base was too small for this kind of
effort.
> I think it would have cost more but kept a lot more people in the HP fold.
> That in my mind was the missed opportunity.
>

In retrospect, we should have realized when HP would not commit to MPE on
Superdome, that it would pull the plug on the Itanium port. Unfortunately,
most of us bought into the "trusted partner" relationship model HP touted.
We were then blindsided on 11/14/01, hearing for the first time "ecosystem"
applied to the market for a computer system.

I think the OpenMPE Board is still clinging to the remnants of the "trusted
partner" relationship. OpenMPE Board members and most of those who have been
critical of HP and OpenMPE, including myself, all know individual members of
vCSY whom we believe when they say they want to do right by HP 3000 users.
But we have to realize these people have no control over MPE's destiny. The
only individual who might have been able to steer a course more agreeable to
OpenMPE members was gone six months after 11/14.

I mostly kept my mouth shut publicly, waiting to see what would happen after
the final end-of-sales, hoping I would be proven wrong by HP agreeing to
OpenMPE's requests now that all opportunities for significant income from
the HP 3000 were over. Instead, we have more stalling, more surveys and more
focus groups. The cause is almost certainly lost. For whatever reason, HP
the company is committed to MPE's death.

John Burke