John,
I agree that advertising the performance as 110 Mhz while it actually
performs at 55 is wrong, even fraudulent.  Since system performance is
affected by so many factors other than clock speed, I question the validity
of Gavin's "measured" speed, however.  While we may quibble about the
*degree* of software "crippling" that has been done to this machine, that is
secondary to the point I was trying to make.  The real question is whether
software crippling should be used at all.

My point is that HP decided (for reasons that may or may not be valid) to
sell a box at this performance point.  If they had accomplished that level
of performance by building hardware that was actually that slow, no one
would be complaining.  (They might not buy the machine, but they wouldn't
complain about its existence.)  Knowing that the box is capable of better
performance seems to be the issue that annoys everyone.  My opinion, on the
other hand, is that if HP wants to sell a box at performance point X, and
sell it for price Y, it really doesn't matter how they accomplish it, unless
the choice they made caused the box to be more expensive.  I believe HP's
choice to use software crippling actually kept costs down, because they
didn't have to design multiple hardware platforms. In any case, the purchase
price of an HP 3000 bears little relationship to its cost of manufacture (as
evidenced by the price of equivalent HPUX machines), so the cost issues are
probably meaningless to the customer.

I am not prepared to defend the wisdom of HP's reasoning.  I simply believe
that their motives are not as nefarious as everyone seems to believe.  There
is an old and wise adage: Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by stupidity.

-----Original Message-----
From: John R. Wolff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 4:23 PM
To: HP3000 List; John Clogg
Subject: Re: HP Press Release about hp3000


On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 14:15:18 -0700, John Clogg <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>While the software-induced degradation of the A400 is annoying, keep in
>mind that it was done in order to provide a lower-priced entry point for
>smaller customers.  With the elimination of limited user licensing, the
>only way for this machine's capacity to be limited (to keep third-party
>software pricing from being prohibitive) was to slow it down.  This could
>have been done by manufacturing a slower processor, but that would
>probably be more costly.  The advantage of slower hardware would be that
>no one would feel cheated, I guess.  Perhaps retaining user license tiers
>at the low end would have been better, but HP was responding to customer
>feedback, they say, when they eliminated them.

PLEASE  --  NO EXCUSES  --  NO JUSTIFICATIONS  --  NO EXPLANATIONS!
FRAUD is FRAUD!

A scheme such as this couched in non-sense about "responding to customer
feedback" is crazy.  Just how many users requested that HP produce a
machine like this (Answer: NONE)?  Why don't they offer this "benefit" to
HP9000 users too?

Selling a box with advertised specifications of 110MHz, but that really
only performs at around 55MHz is FRAUD.  A 928 runs at 48MHz, so what do
you really get by buying a crippled, degraded and sand bagged A-class box
over a 928?

IBM, et. al. must be laughing their heads off to see a competitor purposely
cripple a new product while trying to explain the benefits of doing so.  HP
cannot even compete seriously with itself, let alone other companies.

If 440MHz is the actual minimum technology available, then so be it.  Sell
it as the bottom rung tier and go on.  HP didn't do this dumb trick (as far
as I know) when previous new systems were introduced in order to keep the
lowest tier performance comparable to 1980's technology  --  sooner or
later (this is later) technology must be permitted to advance, even for the
lowest level user.  There is certainly no hardware cost to HP being saved
by this scheme.

This can only be viewed as a political move by HP to once and for all get
rid of the HP3000.  How many nails in the coffin are required?

>Gavin wrote:
>>All current A-class and some N-class systems are "clock
>>reduced" meaning they have some sort of delay loop in MPE that
>>prevents you from using all of the CPU cycles of the
>>(typically) 440MHz processor in the box.
>
>>As a result of doing MPE to HP-UX performance comparisons it
>>has recently been determined that the "110MHz" numbers appear
>>to have been made up by HP marketing, and that these boxes
>>actually only allow you to use about 55MHz out of the 440MHz
>>available, so the "good news" is that your "110MHz" A-class
>>MPE system will actually become about *eight* times faster in
>>CPU speed when turned into an uncrippled HP-UX system.
>
>So this means an "110MHz" (really 50-something MHz) A400 is throwing
>away 7/8 of the whole machines throughput.

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