Hi all,

I understand and basically agree with John's reply below. At the
same time I am a bit disappointed in Paul's reply, especially since
he is the Chair of the MPE Forum, which has influenced the SIB
process in a very positive way, IMO. Also, Wyell mentions an issue
which is a factor in CSY's decision.

Paul is correct in that HP is responding "yes" to 4 of the top 10,
which is 40%. Keep in mind that of the more traditional type of SIB
request (like CI functions) we have a better average.  One could
argue that items 5 (gigabit LAN), 7 (ftp large files), 8 (large
discs), and 10 (CI functions) are the more typical SIB items. Of
those we plan on doing 3 of the 4, which is as good or better
than our score in the past few years.

Of the remaining items, a few are directly related to life past
end-of-sales and end-of-support, including: 2a,b (documentation on
the net), 3a,b (parking releases and add-on s/w), 4 (ss_config), and
9 (bundle Allbase). For this group we are saying yes to 2a and we
will have an update (which is expected to be positive) at HP World
on 3b and 9.

The last remaining items: 1 (throttling) and 6 (9x7 on 7.x), are
more controversial. Wyell mentions one concern, and there are
more. The bottom line is that there are teams in vCSY that are
aware (keenly!) of these requests. There are discussions on
these topics. Our plans still have not changed for these items
BUT that does not invalidate the entire SIB process, IMO. You
are getting CI functions, which I was surprised to learn, as
I'm sure some of you are. That would not have happened if CI
Functions had not scored high in the SIB the last few consecutive
years.

Anyway, 4 out of 10 is better than 0 out of ten, and if that
had been our response then I would agree with Paul. I see it
as 4 requests the MPE users are getting that they might not
have gotten without the SIB.

If there is a 2004 SIB, and I hope there is, please take the time
to vote (even if is for one of the items we've said no to this
year).

 regards,
 Jeff


> From: John R. Wolff
...
> On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 16:49:39 -0400, Wyell Grunwald
> >As a business, I would never sell a product, then remove the speed
> >limitation.  That would be tremendously unfair to those of us who
> >purchased larger machines to get performance.
>
> Actually, HP-CSY has a long history of ultimately bundling extra cost
> products into FOS: Store-to-Disk, TurboSTORE, Disc Caching, etc..
>
> Early adopters always pay more for features that others can
> buy cheaper
> later on.  I see the artificial CPU throttling as something
> that could be
> changed (removed in this case) as an improvement to MPE.
> After all, the
> necessary hardware has been bought and paid for already.  In
> most cases you
> didn't really buy a faster CPU, but just paid an extra charge
> to get to use
> all of it.  This is no different than buying a faster machine
> used after a
> time, compared to buying it new earlier.
>
> The same can be said for pricing.  In the computer business we are
> constantly paying less for more performance; i.e., there can be no
> realistic expectation that a computer product will hold its
> value over time.

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