> That's certainly possible of the software vendor in question
> is still in
> business and supporting the software which has moved to another CPU.
> However, if the vendor no longer supports the software, the
> user may be
> stuck if a CPU board needs to be swapped and the software
> won't run on the
> new board.
>

This is why I believe all those planning to be on their exisiting hardware,
or planning to run the emulator, need to take a close look at your 3rd party
vendors.

If a vendor appears to be clinging stubbornly to their current business
model, depends on a single MPE based application for their revenue and/or
starts raising its support fees significantly more than the previous years
then you might want to investigate other options.

For example, a certain 4GL provider for the 3000 has a wide variety of
client/server tools that they keep sending me adds on, even though I have
used their link to request they stop, stressing the migration options. I
have not seen, and do not expect to see, this vendor to make any change in
their businesss model for the 3000 that will result in making life easier
for a homesteader so I am looking into alternatives.

If the community moves to support those vendors who demonstrate they want to
work with us, and not just milk us for whatever final revenue they can, then
we can extend the life of these vendors to the benefit of us all.

In the end though, I do not expect to see many current 3rd party vendors
doing more than just minor bug fixes. Even if HP somehow manages to get
itself out of the way of the emulator/OpenMPE project enough for it to
succeed it will require a new generation of vendors to supply applications
at a price attractive to companies running an abandoned OS on commodity
hardware.

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