Third-quarter financial numbers for HP showed $617 million in profits for the computer maker, figures that still left a ravenous Wall Street disappointed. HP itself said it was disappointed in its earnings figures for the period, blaming them on increased cost of sales and medical products that shipped late. Just five years ago that figure would have represented profit for an entire year of HP operations. HP has already posted $2.3 billion in profits on three quarters of fiscal 1997, $400 million ahead of last year's performance.
In the face of investors' seemingly endless appetite for profits, HP managed to restart its order growth during the period, reporting a 25 percent increase in orders in the US and a 19 percent increase worldwide. Analysts were most impressed with the order rebound after last quarter's slowing of order growth.
HP topped its same-period 1996 profit numbers by 45 percent, since it had the advantage of posting a third quarter this year without a major shutdown of one of its businesses. Last year the company exited the disk drive business and took a large write off for Q3. Operating expenses continued to rise in the period, reflecting HP's shift into lower profit margin areas such as PC-based NT products. HP CEO Lew Platt said the company's "cost of sales increased faster than it has in recent quarters, due in part to the steps we took to stimulate demand."
HP reported a significant increase in sales for the quarter, a 15 percent growth to $10.5 billion. Printers and printer supplies now account for nearly 40 percent of total HP revenue -- which helps explain the recent report in BusinessWeek that printer cartridge profits make up 25 percent of all HP profits.
While the financial news was encouraging for investors and healthy for
HP as an
entity, righting the sales figures probably won't help the HP 3000 gain any
mindshare at
HP's highest management levels. HP CEO Lew Platt said the rebound of sales
results
"shows that our business strategies are on target," Platt noted that HP has
" ambitious
product introductions planned throughout the company," including rolling
out new
services designed to help customers embrace the Internet.
System developer Jim Alton has written a free utility that allows Speedware programs to access system environment variables on HP 3000s. The jGetEnv software gives developers access to HP 3000 variables such as HPSUSAN, HPDTCPORTID, HPQUIET and HPINTERACTIVE with a single line of Speedware code. Alton, who consults for Fioravanti-Redwood, Inc. from his office in Toronto, said the software can be used for tasks such as time-sensitive applications.
"With jGetenv you can get the software time from the operating system -- which is set at boot time -- as opposed to the hardware time which Speedware reports," Alton said. "As you know, the two times can report significantly different times." He added that the software can also be used in conjunction with message files.
To get a free copy of jGetEnv, download it from the Fioravanti-Redwood
Web site
at www.FRInc.com.
JDBTools 2.0 from Rogue Wave Software (541.766.2130, www.roguewave.com) is an object-oriented API that insulates developers from the raw SQL level of JDBC. By encapsulating relational database constructs and operations, Rogue Wave says the product accelerates application development and eases code maintenance, replacing low-level SQL statements with English language terms.
The product illustrates one of the fundamental benefits of working with Java on the HP 3000: portability of solutions. Although JDBTools wasn't designed specifically for the HP 3000, it can be used with the computer because the utility supports Java-capable systems such as the 3000.
JDBTools 2.0 enables developers to use objects that actually correspond to database constructs such as Tables, Cursors, Stored Procedures and Selectors. This avoids dealing with relatively low-level JDBC constructs such as Statements or Callable Statements.
These major abstractions in JDBTools 2.0 can be extended easily via inheritance, making it possible to create specialized objects that reflect core business logic. Specialized objects can then be used across different applications, promoting code reuse. The product calls upon Rogue Wave's experience simplifying database access through C++ with its DBTools.h++ product.
"JDBTools 2.0 makes it practical to develop production-quality database access applications with Java," said David Rice, marketing manager for database products at Rogue Wave. "It provides increased productivity and object-orientation in the same manner that our DBTools.h++ product provides it for C++ developers."
Database experts in the HP 3000 community say the software has the
potential to
help shops that want to establish a link between Java applications and
IMAGE/SQL or
Allbase/SQL -- provided that they use standard SQL calls in their
applications. Rogue
Wave is shipping the product at $795 a copy.
Another tool from the GNU Software Foundation has made its way onto HP 3000s. Mark Klein, the R&D manager for ORBiT Software who ported the G++ object oriented compiler to the 3000, recently reported that GNU's Concurrent Version Control System is available for MPE/iX. The freeware manages and monitors source code for HP 3000s, and it's also available for other platforms to help in cross-system development projects. Since the tool is a development aid rather than a mission-critical piece of software, it may be easier to get permission to use it without the official support that freeware lacks. Look for it on the Freeware tape, available for a nominal fee though Interex (800.INTEREX).
3k Associates reports it has a new application programming interface for sites that truly want to integrate electronic mail receipt and/or delivery with HP3000 based applications. The company's Standard NetMail/3000 comes with batch and scripting capability, but 3k is now shipping the only industry-standard programmatic library for the HP 3000 written to the XAPI group's Common Messaging Calls (CMC) standard.
The API lets mail administrators and programmers integrate easily called routines directly into in-house applications to retrieve mail messages or simply send report output over e-mail. The output can be routed to a user's mailbox, another system or to another mail-enabled application. Routines and sample code are provided, along with a copy of the full standard specifications, as well as routines you can call to retrieve a message from a mailbox, send a message or file and verify addresses from within the mail directory.
3k's Chris Bartram says the API lets 3000 customers generate and transport EDI data via the Internet-standard SMTP and MIME formats, or mail-enable legacy applications to integrate their HP 3000 with NT or Unix servers and applications.
For details or a demo, contact 3k at www.3kassociates.com, 800.NetMail or 703.569.9189.