Ted asks :-

"Neil Harvey, could you give us a quick summary how you succeeded in no
longer having to defend the platform?"

Well, it's not too quick, but here goes.

We used to spend 45 minutes of the one hour sales cycle defending the
platform against misguided IT bigotry ;)

We moved to an ASP (application service provider) model. We sell our
software, as always, and bundle in the hardware and support required to make
it run.
We have two basic flavours:-
1) Application Software and Software support
2) Above plus Hardware, Operating system and Support

Our model 2 includes the provision and maintenance of ALL the hardware and
software required to run our solution successfully - i.e. from Desktops
through to Servers (MPE/iX and NT), all network stuff etc.

Our software is Health Care Administration software, and our customers
measure their efficiency and size on a per insured family and dependant
basis, so we charge accordingly - a per member per month fee.

This focuses us on growing the client's capacity to increase membership,
while reducing the IT required to achieve and sustain this growth.

The HPe3000 and MPE/iX are perfectly suited to this model.
And, since (under model 2) we provide ALL IT required we have full control
over the network, desktop and NT platforms (HP Vectras and Netservers,
usually), we have a great deal of control over the overall efficiency of the
platforms, and so availability of our application software.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Neil




-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Ashton [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 September 2000 10:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The final two days


Well, I'm officially on vacation at the moment (you can see how well that's
working ;-) but I'd wanted to get me report in for the final two days of
HPWorld.
I've got it fermenting in the back of my mind and I'd like to just get it
sent
off and forget about it--after all, vacation is a state of mind . . .

Anywho, first an observation.  I was somewhat surprised at the lack of
laptops
at HPWorld.  With a bunch of computer folk wandering around, one would
expect to
see laptops in abundance.  Not so.  They showed up for the presentations* (I
think that M$ has probably sold more PowerPoint than all of its win versions
combined :-), but they weren't in evidence anywhere else.  Cell 'phones were
ubiquitous, but they didn't appear to be being used as anything other than
'phones, so that doesn't explain it.  Anywho.

*) Of course Wirt brought a desktop . . . I hadn't predicted it, but it
seemed
very appropriate :-).

I started Wednesday with Alvina Nishimoto's presentation on 6.5.  I arrived
late,
and while I found it interesting, what I was able to gather I'm not
confident
enough of to share.  Would someone else be willing to give a summary?

Next I took a deep breath and stopped on over for a session in the HP-UX
lineup,
"Developing for IA-64".  Some very interesting stuff.  I think I've finally
understood some of the things I heard go past in San Diego.  I believe the
term
is "predication".  My understanding is that instructions can be tied to
predicate registers--if the register is on, the instruction is performed.
If
not, it is a nop.  That allows conditional code *without branching* which
can
be a big win.  Likewise, "speculation" allows an instruction to be started
prior to knowing whether it will be needed or not.  And with predication and
register rotation, loops can be unrolled (speed win) without a huge increase
in code size (the typical loss).

The compiler will have 4 levels of optimization and pragmas for stating how
frequently a code section or routine will be called and there will be some
very
nice profiling tools.  As MPE is supposedly "leveraging" the HP-UX compiler
stuff, things look good for 3000 programming--at least in C.  Now if we can
get them talked into making Pascal available . . .

Then off to meet my family (who got to come along to Philadelphia and enjoy
the
sites during the show :-) who had come by with the hope of seeing a bit of
the
expo and certain 3000-L folks.  Sorry.  No can do.  No one under 18 on the
floor.  :-(!  Alfredo was kind enough to come out for an introduction and
Michelle Paul happened by and we accomplished more introductions after the
last
session on Thursday, so we succeeded anyway, but I'd've appreciated notices
ahead of time (I went looking through the materials but found no such
notices).

After a quick lunch, I dashed over to the SigWeb meeting (yes, Michael, I
was
there :-).  Speedware gave an intresting presentation about WAP (Wireless
Application Protocol)--basically Web on your cell 'phone and how that can
work
with your 3K.  Minisoft talked about WebDimension.  Cognos told us about
Powerhouse Web, and the "Chief Evangelist" came and told us about Enhydra
(www.enhydra.org).

Next up to hear Winston Prather's speech.  He spoke without notes, and had
gotten
Ann and Duane to record their views on the 3000.  I appreciated his efforts,
but
was frustrated by how little they were willing to commit about evangelizing
the
3000.  Ann compared it to a VW bug and did actually go so far as to mention
the
possibility that someone might actually want to switch *to* the box.  Duane
called it "my grandfather's hammer", "not particularly ergonomic" but still
faithfully working.  Winston did his best with both, but I'm yet hoping that
we
can adjust those notions.  It *does* have the latest ergonomic handle and
good
balance.  And perhaps we can change her car choice from VW to BMW :-).
At the end, CSY folks handed out tatoos.  Could someone who got one scan it
and
post it somewhere?  Also I have a few extra if someone who missed out would
like
one (I don't promise to answer requests this week, however :-).

From there I headed on down the Steve Macsisak's SPT talk--now I just need
to
talk my boss into getting it for me :-) and then to the HP3000 roundtable.
For
me, that was probably the most encouraging session as far as hopes for the
3K
go.  Those folks are doing good things and they are determined to get the
word
out to the rest of HP.  They've been working on it since long before we got
ourselves all riled up and they have reason to believe that the "highly
appropriate" mentions would've happened even without our emails.  Who knows.
Whichever way, they aren't satisfied with the mention so far and are still
fighting the battle.

They got asked about WSJ advertising.  A good laugh when Christine from
Marketing
asked, "do you know how much a WSJ ad costs?"  The upshot was, though, they
don't
feel that the return on "awareness" campaign was very much compared to
campaigns
to actually get boxes into businesses.  Christine said that *new* businesses
are
bringing up 3000s every month.  If only we could know about it!  The big
push is
vertical markets and evidently that's being pretty successful.  I think that
3K
survival may well depend on its ceasing to be sold as other OSes are, by
name,
but rather as the core of solutions.  Neil Harvey, could you give us a quick
summary how you succeeded in no longer having to defend the platform?

Thursday morning I got over to hear Mark Bixby tell about HP WebWise.  Good
sesssion--ask him for a copy of the slides if you're intending to bring
WebWise
up :-).  And then the long-awaited QCTerm session.  Well done, Wirt.  Some
nice stuff there.  Most of the good stuff has been said already, though--the
real version will be out RSN (Atmarian time, at least :-) and it's worth the
wait.

I won't list the haul from the vendor show.  After all, I had two young'uns
awaiting me in the hotel, so toys got distributed pretty quickly.  The one
worth
mentioning, though, was the Neck Pillow from HP.  I thought, that's nice,
inflatable travel pillow.  And I didn't think much more about it.  Until Jo
wanted to know what it was and I unfolded it to discover, written where one
rests his head, "MPE\iX ... a true hp invention".

Ted
--
Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Sys, Southern Adventist University
          ==========================================================
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s devoted Beckett readers greeted each
successively shorter volume from the master with a mixture of awe and
apprehensiveness; it was like watching a great mathematician wielding an
infinitesimal calculus, his equations approaching nearer and still nearer to
the null point.
                                      -- Banville, John
          ==========================================================
         Deep thoughts to be found at http://www.southern.edu/~ashted