The following is reproduced (with permission) from an article by Peter
Bradley that appeared in the February issue of the HPCUA (HP3000 Users
Group in the UK) magazine. I have only reproduced what I considered the
relevant portions in an attempt to save bandwidth but it still is a bit
long, apologies to everyone about the bandwidth but the article is not in
electronic form anywhere. I felt it was relevant because it shows that some
of HP's management are actively quoting some of the views that have been
posted on this list.
Jean-Paul Ferouelle is one of three HP Europe executives who has
responsibility for marketing the HP3000 - managing Southern Europe and the
UK.
Jean-Paul Ferouelle has the job of running with the HP3000 ball, as one of
the three European champions for the Cinderella of HP's
platforms....Ferouelle has heard it all before: "In 1986, it was Unix -
forget the past - its Unix forever. Now it's NT forever." He said one
result of the rush to Unix was that it stopped a lot of investment in
partnership relations. "Most developers couldn't run the two systems
together, so they forgot the HP3000. Sometimes we even encouraged them to
go to Unix. IBM didn't - they continued to invest in both Unix and their
proprietary offerings."
Ten years on, Unix's crown is being threatened by NT, but "there are
thousands of HP3000 customers - somehow still loyal". Recognising that
loyalty at last - and no doubt the healthy revenue stream it generates -
HP, under the charismatic leadership of worldwide general manager Harry
Sterling, is at last muttering those magic words : "Cinders, you shall go
to the ball." Bit by bit Sterling and his team have put in place a strategy
that ensures there are no disincentives - and plenty of incentives (see
918DX developer box specification - JD) - to sticking to the HP3000. So,
HP3000 and HP9000 versions of each new platform, 64-bit functionality,
Internet access, interoperability with Unix and NT, even a strong
advertising campaign - and not just to the converted - all these steps have
been taken in pursuit of protecting users' HP3000 investment.
Ferouelle says the applications are the key and accepts that if a
company is going for a new solution that's not on the HP3000 then that's
it, "and we are trying to keep most customers on the HP3000 - but if
they're looking for non-HP3000 opportunities, we want them to stay with
HP."
He smoothly campaigns for the HP3000, quite happy to bash its rivals
en route: "The HP3000 is easy to run so people want to stay with it. We've
had people who went to Unix and then came back to the HP3000; there are a
lot of stories about the complexities of Unix, its definitely more
difficult to run than MPE."
....Funnily enough, the Millennium is the ill wind that may be blowing
some good to the HP3000: "If you are on an HP3000 and pondering the move
now to Unix, our advice is not to. There's no way to do the whole
implementation with all the testing in two years."
.....He sees his task as identifying all potential partners for the
platform: "But Im not interested in box-movers, I want skills in products
and a willingness to do business with the HP3000." One of his tasks is to
fine-tune the delivery structure across his patch - he aims to have one
distributor and about three or four partners in each country by year-end.
.....He accepts that if a customer chooses "a wonderful application
running somewhere else", then they'll move, but believes "the real
challenge is to come up with new solutions - as soon as a customer is
satisfied with a solution, the HP3000 will be there". He says HP is
committed to a 30 per cent per annum improvement of the platform. "We're
developing the OS to 64 bit functionality, we're developing SMP, hardware,
software, we're doing everything to make the HP3000 communicate."....
...."MPE will survive NT. I'm not even sure Unix won't be in big
difficulties in the next five years. But MPE will be there..."
A Note from the Editor of the HPUser magazine :
HP User is a publication of the UK HP Computer Users' Association.
The UK Annual Conference and Exhibition is being held at the International
Centre, Telford, Shropshire (30 miles west of Birmingham) on September
22-23, 1998. The programme will address the concerns of MPE, UX and NT
users. For Conference information, please email: [log in to unmask]
The programme is still being formulated, so anyone interested in presenting
a paper is invited to send an abstract by March 30 to: [log in to unmask]
HP User is free to residents of Europe; annual subscription is 30 pounds
sterling to rest of world, payable by credit card or sterling cheque. For
subscription form, please email: [log in to unmask]
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