Hello Friends:
 
(In advance, I ask the list's forgiveness for the bandwidth. This is no
more a diversion than the puzzles, though probably not as entertaining. It
does help keep us journalists busy, however.)
 
George Thompson of HP Professional appeared on 3000-L to clear the air
about HP Professional's prior forecast of the winners in computing. This
"Lew Platt says..." subject came up because an HP Pro editorial quoted
Platt as picking Unix and NT as the only two operating systems left in the
end. (It's up to the reader to decide if that's Lew's end, HP's end or the
end of computing advances). Some people here wondered if Lew's quote meant
anything to them. I offered up an important internal-to-HP HP 3000 success
story to refute the horse race mentality. (Personally, I think "two
winners" is a meaningless quote, but I wasn't surprised to see it surface
where it did.)
 
I was glad to see HP Professional reappear before the HP 3000 community
with the posting -- even if George's comments appeared to minimize the
contributions of this profitable and produtive system.
 
He said, among other things:
 
>Re the MVS unplugging. Yes, HP did
>move some of its big-time apps to the HP 3000. But they also moved many
>other of their mission-critical apps to HP 9000s.
 
I choose to take Lew Platt's approach. You know, the one where somebody at
HP Pro asks when Unix will get unplugged, and Lew says, "When nobody cares
anymore." That's already the case here at the NewsWire. We've unplugged
from Unix coverage, and we don't care anymore. This is an editorial
operation that doesn't track HP 9000 succesess, at our readers' preference.
 
Whatever part the HP 9000 played in the unplug can't erase the fact that
one of the biggest applications of all didn't land on a Unix box. HP won't
be moving those 2 million lines of code anytime soon. It's not all Unix and
NT, even at HP. That's because computer managers don't treat it like a
horse race.
 
George said:
>we endeavor to present and interpret the facts as they are,
>and not what we wish them to be.
 
Hmmm, are we confusing the excitement and optimism of the NewsWire with
telling less than the truth? I hope not. We all have our opinions, and some
of us buy paper and ink to spread them.
 
I don't doubt that the following is a fact, because it was printed in
December's HP Professional editorial:
 
"My all time favorite myth is that HP Professional is an HP 3000 magazine."
 
It's my all time favorite quote from the magazine. But I believe there was
only wishful thinking going on when the following crack was printed in the
same editorial:
 
"Even the HP market isn't at a lack for legends. We've all heard wives'
tales of "huge" corporations purchasing millions of HP 3000s, but their
names cannot be revealed because they are afraid that their competitors
will get wind of their great secret computing advantage (of which no one
else is aware)."
 
Then George assured us:
 
>we try to avoid the sometimes sensational
>reporting of our journalistic brethren in the trade press at large.
 
Notwithstanding all the above sport at the 3000's expense and reporting
"two winners," I'm sure.
 
Interestingly, he tells us about his job:
 
>It's a journalist's job to listen and report
>what people are saying and doing. But we have accurately
>been reporting what HP has been telling, the world at large.
 
Since I've worked the last 12 years covering the HP market, I know that
"what people are saying and doing" needs to include customers. Here at the
NewsWire we don't visit unplug parties -- we report in the field, talking
to MIS managers who are running successful, profitable companies with HP
3000s. (See for yourself at http://www.3000newswire.com/newswire) Reporting
what the manufacturer tells people about its products is, quite frankly,
the job of HP's PR department.
 
Telling the diverse story of computing in the 90s makes any "two winners"
comment meaningless. Readers of this list might remember that the next time
they see horse race handicapping, in any publication, masquerading as
computer journalism.
 
 
Ron Seybold, Editor In Chief
The 3000 News/Wire
Independent Information to Maximize Your HP3000
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