<<I've changed my mind.  If anyone has anything to say about small
systems and whether they have any interest in them, please post it to
this list. It would be interesting to have a discussion on this issue,
following up on the discussions at IPROF, if only to let HP know that we
are still interested.

The big hangup seems to be the cost of support, which for a developer
with subsystems such as COBOL, Fortran, etc. gets absolutely prohibitive.
 It seems to me that HP needs to take a leaf from Microsoft's book and
give some real support to small developers, providing them with
development systems with everything they need to produce software
applications at a low price.  Even if they make a loss on it, they can
charge it off to marketing, because it's the applications that will be
selling the HP3000s. Windows 95 would be nowhere if there hadn't been
lots of readily available applications for it.  The lack of applications
is probably the biggest reason why OS/2 can't compete.

So, who out there is interested in such a small development system?  If
you are, make a noise!>>


[insert appropriate noise here]

People don't buy OS's, or boxes-they buy solutions to problems. Or at
least what someone convinces them is the solution.

If the solution is what they need, they buy it; if necessary, they buy
the box it runs on. Most of us remember the "I want a VisiCalc"
phenomenon-people knew what they wanted, and the little brown box with
the colored apple on the side was incidental in getting them the solution
they were after. But that "Yeah, whatever" situation made the little
brown box the dominant computer hardware platform of the day in its
market.

I haven't heard or read much about HP confusing potential buyers by
offering "too many choices" in any software area-databases, productivity,
transaction processing, Web server/development, etc. So I have to think
that there's at least a little room for HP to sell more boxes if they
provide a way for developers to provide additional choices to the buying
public.

Steve Dirickson         WestWin Consulting
(360) 598-6111  [log in to unmask]