Hi Alfredo !

So you wrote :

> Funny you should mention this.  I just spoke with a friend
> who works at a major university (as in "billions of dollars
> of endowment", lots of Nobel Prize winners, and so on).
>
> Their hp3000 machines ARE their endowment cash registers and
> they do a first-rate job.  The university certainly uses
> all kinds of OTHER machines for all kinds of OTHER purposes.
> But what do they use for what really counts (i.e., for the
> absolutely most reliable gatekeeping in terms of their MONEY)?
> The hp3000 running MPE-IMAGE, of course :-)

This is certainly today's reliable machine for a could-not-be-more strategic
need, the one driving the money flow. But what about tomorrow ?

> And this is just today's conversation.  I get exactly the
> same "feedback" (to use HP's "management" term :-) all the
> time.

Most of my customers still on MPE (number dwindling on a weekly basis - sigh
...) say exactly the same. The Wind@ws boxes merely sputter along, whereas
the MPE server gently purrs, with hardly a hiccup, and Un!x is somewhere
in-between.


> Many hp3000 machines are not on maintenance.

Mine are not, and they have never been. I've stockpiled enough parts to get
them running well into this century. As far as software maintenance is
concerned, I rely on the DSPP for software updates and on my friends at
HP3000-L and other lists when I'm in trouble. The cynical guy deep inside me
says the HP Response Center people should do the same, for a better
first-line support quality.

> Many are, but
> not on HP's maintenance plans.  Still many others are under
> HP maintenance.  The fact that (most of them) keep on
> trucking under circumstances that would drive lesser machines
> to the dumpster IS an extremely powerful statement.

Unfortunately, it's not. The 3000's inherent reliability is so high it's
very hard to get an improvement. When you've reached the Everest of
reliability, it's hard to get anywhere higher, isn't it ?

Now, HP has dumped the 3000. So what's the relevance of an HP reliability ?
Nil. Sorry to be blunt but, short of an eleventh-hour miracle that no one
sees coming, MPE is dead for HP's purposes. For an MPE future, count on
OpenMPE, Inc. rather than on HP. When it comes,the inherent hardware
reliability of an emulator will be that of the underlying hardware/OS
platform, most likely Intel + Linux.

> Be it as it may:
>
> This EXTREMELY POWERFUL statement could be used for an
> unbelievable marketing campaign by HP.  Unfortunately, the
> business schools that HP marketing folks attended seem to
> have drilled -- unbelievably effectively and powerfully --
> the belief that this statement is "bad".

These marketing geeks are indeed quite smart. They've convinced THE WHOLE
WORLD that they need new bells and whistles every now and then. Think of
this : would you do, these days, without multiple windows ? without sound ?
without color ? without a mouse ? Well, thats' where MPE is, in terms of
human interface. Where a mid-tech product like, say, a car experiences a
complete technological revolution every 2 decades or so, a hi-tech product
like a computer experiences the same overhaul every, say, 3 years. Because
we don't want to do without our neighbor's bells and whistles. Because we've
been told by the marketing geeks that it's good. Because, ultimately, it
keeps a whole industry (and that certainly includes you and I, my dear
Alfredo) in business.

Cynical ? Perhaps. A market insuperable reality ? Certainly.

> Go figure.

See above for details.

Anyway, I would never shoot point-blank on business school graduates without
carefully thinking before. After all, I may shoot myself.

Christian

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