In light of Richard's follow-on, of course (of all people) what I
*meant* to say was:

> ......  it seems like a good marketing department could come
> up with some *dynamite* ads comparing MPE & Image/SQL
> with UNIX & Oracle in this area;  in favor of MPE & IMAGE.
> oops....  I forgot:  HP doesn't do that....

(I've gotten to where it's so automatic for me to consider IMAGE
as an integral, core part of MPE/iX that sometimes I use just
MPE to refer to both...    :-)  )

....  of course now that it has been publicly announced that
support for Oracle on the 3000 will become history at the end
of CY 2000 (if I recall the date correctly), maybe HP will not be
quite so reluctant to "offend their database partners" (quoting
HP's EX-vice-president of system technology Rich Sevcik (y'all
remember good 'ol Rich:  he was the guy who not that long ago
publicly and unambiguously said that HP had "no plans" to
password the HP 3000 system diagnostic utilities...  and then
shortly thereafter did exactly that) )....

I hope someone brings up "Let the Owl Fly Free" at the HPW
management roundtable;  just to see what HP sez....     ;-)

Ken Sletten