I, as most of you, have been busy migrating these
days and haven't had much time to comment on
individual posts. However, I sure have *wanted*
to reply :-)

Here are some random comments WRT previous postings:

1. Jeff Vance has spoken very well on behalf of WP and the
   inner dealings of CSY concerning profitability and
   corporate goals. Here are my .02 on this:

   a. In a large company GMs like WP are given
      tremendous responsibility to 'run the business'.
      They are given goals which must be met in order
      to continue with the businesses they have been
      charged. They generate revenue form their products
      and they spend it to continue improving them.
      There comes a time when the leader of this effort,
      WP in this case, can tell that its not going to
      work trying to continue with the particular business.

   b. I sure appreciate being given the notice we did get rather
      than the way in which other platforms have sometimes been
      shuttered. Research the history and you find many instances
      of 'immediate-stop' that was a lot more intense.

   c. The phrase - 'the HP e3000 is a cash cow' is a myth and not
      true.

   d. Shutting down a product line is the same as a product launch,
      only in reverse. You have to line up a lot of people, divisions,
      information, etc. HP is a publicly traded company. Until they
      make a public announcement about a product they have to treat it
      in public statements as still being supported. To do otherwise
      would be making a public statement!  You might think HP was lying
      to you by continuing to support the HP e3000 right up until the
      announcement.  However, they were playing by the rules that are
      required of publicly traded companies AND what is good business.
      Until it's announced its not real. Until it's real you have to
      keep operating/talking/etc as if it's not been announced.

2. Those who think HP is making a mistake by focusing on commodity systems
   are missing the point entirely. There is nothing wrong with being
   in a commodity business. Does anyone here have a problem with Proctor
   and Gamble?  Nestle? Or any other company selling commodity products?
   It has been proven that if you are a growth company and want to provide
   continue shareholder value you need to own markets to be successful. If
   you don't own a market then you always fall behind. You don't have enough
   revenue to improve your products enough to catch up. HP is only applying
   this basic economic truth to the businesses they operate.  The sale
   doesn't stop at the system. There is support, consulting, etc. that they
   are wanting to provide. BTW - the Superdome is NOT a commodity and they
   have been selling lots of these. Companies can be commodity focuses at
   one end of their product line but not at the other end. Don't assume
   an entire commodity play here.

3. Recent comments have alluded that maybe since HP is trumpeting Linux
   as a development platform that indicates HP's direction and so
   HP-UX must be the next to go. That would be a mis-application of
   context. Linux is a very good development platform. The cost of
   ownership is low and you can have lots of them hanging around for
   little cost compared to hp-ux. The code you develop can be easily
   deployed on hp-ux. The tools are mostly free and come with source
   code. Why not use Linux for development. Foolish not to. HP-UX has
   value to large enterprise customers who want the advanced features
   of the o/s. While Linux is an interesting play long term, I think
   you will see hp-ux around for quite awhile.

duane

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