Hi Bill

I have also watched this story develop and apart from a few off-line
comments, I had felt that I would await the announcement before
commenting further. But as discussion grows as the witching hour
approaches I no longer feel restrained.

Firstly I would like to support your comments here, which echo's many of
the comments I have made publicly over the last couple of years whenever
people complained about the cost of 3000 hardware or support. I have
always thought it very good value, not the cheapest but the best value.
I also knew that commercially my best interests were that CSY should
survive and to do that they need to generate sufficient revenue.

As you mention and as I always understood CSY never saw any support
revenues. This I always thought was a stupid and rather akin to a car
manufacturer only making money on car sales, and having to supply all
the spare parts and do the servicing for free. This in the 3000 market
place is even more ridiculous as it was the ongoing development work by
CSY that kept the support revenue flowing. If/When HP do decide to drop
the 3000, If there is some entity set up that will continue to develop,
support or port MPE and they can tap into that software support stream
they may actually be better off than CSY was.

The final point you make about dwindling new business sales is correct,
but much of the blame can be laid at HP's corporate door and to a minor
extent CSY's. For much of the last decade the many HP3000 vendors around
the world (for whom the impact of such an announcement will be far worse
than it will be for anyone within CSY) have complained that it was
virtually impossible to get any public support for the HP3000 unless it
was directed towards the installed base (preaching to the choir) whilst
in contrast IBM was only too happy to promote the AS/400. But as they
say that is now water under the bridge.

My one hope now is that a direction can be found for MPE either within
or outside of HP, and that the commitment and talents of those both
within CSY and within the Vendor/User community can be harnessed to that
end. I don't know about anyone else but my love is not the HP3000 Badge
or any particular piece of hardware, but it is the operating system,
database and the applications that have developed with it that have
allowed so many of us to develop robust mission critical applications.

There is a part of me that wonders if most of us might actually be
better off if the HP3000 itself was discontinued. If that meant that we
might see a version of MPE etc. that would run on any hardware, we might
actually be able to develop a new market for the applications that
utilise it. If only we could put the right spin on it being a non Win
based Mission Critical environment where the customer had a choice of
hardware suppliers. Wishful thinking maybe?

My biggest fear is that some people may be thinking that providing some
half assed migration path to UX and Allbase is the right thing to do for
the HP3000 community. If it was many vendors would have done it already,
and as you mention there have been some very public failures when some
have attempted it. My gut feeling is if that was the option offered many
would look in a completely different direction and rightly or wrongly
would never consider HP as a partner or supplier again.

But as it's only about 24 hours and counting, I await the announcement
with some trepidation, but look forward to seeing where the horse ends
up as I suspect its too late to bolt the stable door.

Alan


In article <[log in to unmask]>, Bill Lancaster
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>Hi,
>
>I've been watching this thread with some obvious interest and wanted to
>throw in my $.02.
>
>There are some assumptions that should be challenged.  First, that Carly
>would be directly responsible for the possible demise of the 3000, should
>the rumor prove to be true.
>
>Regardless of whether the rumor is true or not it seems very unproductive
>to me to be throwing stones at Carly, although, God knows I sure don't like
>what she's doing.  If the rumor is true, I suspect that Carly had
>absolutely nothing to do with it.  I've known and trusted current CSY
>management for some time and feel that,  1) If they felt the HP e3000
>business to be sustainable, they would fight like cats and dogs to keep it
>and 2) If they felt the HP e3000 business to NOT be sustainable, they would
>inevitably pull the trigger themselves.
>
>The next assumption is the "MPE is HP's cash cow".  I know this one to be
>false.  For the 3000 to be such a cash cow there would have had to be a LOT
>more new installations in the last few (several) years than have
>occurred.  In my business we have dealt with many, many new, large 3000
>sites.  The new installations have dropped off precipitously in the last
>few years.
>
>My understanding is that CSY doesn't participate in the support revenues,
>just system and software sales.  How can CSY survive (read: "thrive") if
>the new system sales just aren't there.
>
>For several years running, Amisys was the top reseller of 3000's followed
>by SGA/Ecometry and, presumably, Summit.  Additionally, Amisys was the
>application environment *most* pushing the top end of the 3000 product
>line.  Well, Amisys is mostly dead, having gambled and lost on the
>Amisys/Open product, and haven't done much new business for at least two
>years now.
>
>That being said, I am forced to ask, "Where are the new system sales going
>to come from?".
>
>I also sat in the room a few years ago when Harry Sterling committed to the
>port of MPE to IA-64.  I also heard the furthering of that commitment by
>others since.  Can there be a more uncomfortable "rock-and-hard-place"
>scenario than the one Winston Prather has been in the last few years?  I
>probably would have wanted to open a vein on more than one occasion, and
>not necessarily mine.
>
>Should the rumor prove to be true, I want to say that, while it would
>sadden me, it wouldn't surprise me.  In fact, we had a meeting in the
>company two years ago where we estimated the effective life of the 3000 to
>be three to five years.  Anybody who would be surprised just simply hasn't
>been paying attention or is too unwilling to admit that, in the final
>analysis, market dynamics rule.
>
>Lastly, I want to say publicly that, because of my love of the 3000, my
>affection for the community and my trust of CSY, I fully intend to do
>everything I can to make any potential migration as easy for customers AND
>beneficial for HP as I possibly can.  It would be absolutely craven of me,
>and others, to abandon HP when they are at this low ebb.  I refuse to do
>that because, when all is said and done, any business comes down to the
>people, and the people I know in this community, both within HP and
>without, are worthy of my personal loyalty.
>
>
>Bill
>
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>

Alan Yeo
[log in to unmask]    Just because you're paranoid
Phone +44 1684 291710   it doesn't mean someone isn't!.
Fax   +44 1684 291712

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