<<I am addressing this question to the entire list, in case anyone else is also interested, but this question is really to Jeff Vance.
My understanding of the initial offering of the HP3000 918 DX was that the price was going to try to be around $7,000.  This was before an every increasing list of software vendors (which I think is good, but..).  Is the price going to stay around $7,000, or is the system priced at $7,000 plus $450 for Adager, plus $400 for Lund, plus $295 for QSS, plus $600 for Robelle plus $450 for VESoft, plus whatever 52% off of something costs?
Is this price now creaping backup there again to a level that is out of range for the smaller developer?>>


I don't think I see how Jeff can answer this. HP is going to sell the box plus the HP software for their price, but what does that have to do with third-party software? The vendors mentioned have indicated their intention to make their products available to 918DX owners at reduced prices, but I haven't seen anything indicating that it will be via some fully-bundled "all or nothing" package, and I don't expect that HP will be the distribution channel for a raft of third-party products anyway. Any given purchaser of a 918DX should be able to add whatever third-party products s/he wants, some of which will be at the discounted rates, while others probably won't. I certainly would have a problem with being "forced" to pay for a bunch of third-party stuff that I don't need as part of the 918DX bundle.

Steve