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

That part I disagree with.  A cow is something that, in general,
continues to give value years after you purchase it.
The 3000 is the same way for HP ... many users have 9x7s on hardware
and software support today ... letting HP "milk" them thar cows for $.

However, HP wasn't interested in "cash cows".  They only wanted something
they could sell new models of over and over.  I'd stretch this into
a hamburger analogy, but... :)

>    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. .
        ...
>       You might think HP was lying to you by continuing to support
>       the HP e3000 right up until the announcement.

I think that's not quite what people were complaining about, the
"continuing to support", but, rather, the apparent *pushing* of the
platform up until the end.
(Jokes about "pushing off a cliff" can be assumed, and not posted :)
...
and that's different.  Should they have announced their decision
the day it was made?  I don't know.  I do think that your argument
doesn't quite apply, however.

>    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.

That's clearly untrue!  Just look at the PC software field for
many examples of that!  You have to have *enough* income to fund
R&D and sales, but you don't have to be #1 in the market.  (Sometimes,
it's even harder for #1 to improve a product than it is for #2)

>  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

It's not so much that the sale doesn't "stop at the system", as
selling a system isn't where the profit is today.  It's the follow-on
that many people see as being where to make money.

> 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.

No...HP-UX is dying, thanks to Linux and Windows.  It's simply going to hang
on a bit longer than MPE.  There's little reason today to buy HP-UX,
and even those reasons are rapidly evaporating.

Now, I'll hedge my bets: it wouldn't surprise me to see HP selling an
OS in 2 or 3 years that's *called* "HP-UX", but is actually Linux.

Remember, HP marketing has already shown that they don't value customer
loyalty.  So, why should they retain HP-UX if they can "migrate" customers
to Linux and still keep them on HP hardware? :)

Stan Sieler                                           [log in to unmask]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html          www.allegro.com/sieler

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