It's support contract renewal time here so forgive me as I go off on a
bit of a rant...

While some vendor's have been reasonable about the new reality of the
post sales HP 3000 world others seem determined to rip as many dollars
from our wallets as they can by using the licensing keys for their
products as a weapon.

Since the future of OpenMPE is far to unsure to bet a business on we
have frozen the current state of our 3000 and are moving to other
platforms. One vendor in particular, let us call him Vendor C, is being
particularly greedy and even though no new development is being done
using his product, and we have not used phone support for anything other
than to request temporary license keys for disaster recovery testing nor
are we installing any updated versions, Vendor C is insisting that we
pay the normal fee for phone and upgrade support or they will not
provide the license keys for testing or in the event of a real disaster.

While I personally learned many years ago to never do new business with
Vendor C, as they are well known for their love of other peoples money,
perhaps it would be a good idea for us to share information about
unfriendly vendors. This way others may be forewarned before they choose
to use these vendors on the 3000 or as they move to new platforms and
perhaps some lost revenue will cause them to rethink their position.

Just a thought.

Comments are my own, not my employer's... Etc.