Bruce [in part] wrote:
 
> And in the most recent PC Magazine, the "Network" section concentrates on
> "building a server room" with a whole bunch of advice that sounds a lot
> like the rules that centralized IS folks have followed for years. They're
> even bringing back the picture windows!
 
What I find interesting is the mutual benefits the large-old-proprietary
shops and the small-new-open mindset share.  As small distributed systems
grow, they must learn from the other to have a vague hope of scalability,
data integrity and managable performance.  The traditional shops are
receiving the ecconomies of scale for hardware, more software and
hardware standardization and a good healthy shove into distributed
architectures.
 
A quick thought about MPE death dirges:  The revenues HP receives from
MPE systems and support fees are not trivial.  The installed base is
sufficient and dedicated enough to prosper well beyond the end
of my carrer (beyond that I don't care).  If this were not the case,
if indeed HP had written off MPE as unviable in the market place, then
they would have nailed the lid shut by now.
 
The only thing I can think of that would kill off MPE in the short term
would be insufficient sales support ;->
 
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The thoughts expressed herein are mine and do not reflect those of my
employer, or anyone with common sense.