John,

It was not my intention to group you in any HP cynics or supporters list, my
introduction was simply a starting point for the message.  As to the statement
from HP, there is no secrecy or conspiracy theory behind it.  I would say that
with many organizations of HP's size ( hence also the public corporation
reference ), public announcements require some wordsmithing and approval from
several sources before they can be released.  This has nothing to do with HP
being a public entity, just a bureaucratic one.  There is also the very
legitimate issue of committing to something that does not even exist yet.

For the content ( or lack thereof ), that is not really for HP to dictate, but
for Open MPE to create.  HP's official message is still to migrate.  Why
wouldn't it be?  They have issued a discontinuance announcement of a product.
There is no reason to publish anything else but migration information to current
customers.  Open MPE is asking for the ability to facilitate other options for
MPE not currently in HP's plans. In order for us to get any of these things from
HP, we must prove to them that there is a real need or desire for those services
to continue in some manner.  Now that we have HP's attention ( officially ), we
can put together some real data to back up our requests.  I can assure you if we
get 10,000 responses to users that want to continue using MPE in some manner
then HP will certainly try to help.  The old 'current' customers argument not
withstanding, HP does not want to lose that many customers to other vendors, and
I wouldn't still be working with them if I felt that to be true.

Chris Miller
Genesis Total Solutions, Inc.

John Clogg wrote:

> Chris,
> Thanks for your posting.  It's good to know something is happening.  I would
> only comment that you have perhaps erred in numbering me among the cynics.
> I am not yet prepared to assume that HP is not going to be cooperative.  All
> I said is that we still don't have any indication from HP about their
> intent, and it appears from your post that the silence is carefully
> calculated and deliberate.  I always assumed it was.  You described the
> extreme care that was taken in crafting yesterday's statement.  Those
> efforts were successful if the goal was to produce a statement that doesn't
> say anything.  Ted's protests notwithstanding, the most that can be said
> about the announcement, in my opinion, is that it triggered this discussion.
>
> Perhaps after this is over you can explain why the need for secrecy is
> amplified by the fact that HP is a publicly held corporation.  I don't get
> it.
>
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Miller [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 10:17 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: OpenMPE Inc. endorsement - My Take
>
> Robert, John, John, Jim, and all other (understandably) cynical MPE users,
> vendors, and customers (old and new):
>
> My company has been using and developing with HP for 30+ years.
> <snip>
> HP is a publicly held company that is very careful about public statements.
>
> <snip>

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