At a presentation during the HP World show in August, HP manager Ken Gerlach explained that there were no new major enhancements scheduled for Desk. HP also distributed a white paper on the various Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) gateways available for Desk, as reviewed by HP's engineers. The SMTP capability, needed to tie into the Internet, is a feature that never made it into Desk, even after HP renamed it OpenDesk.
HP has also posted a statement about OpenDesk on the Ask Dick Watts web page, addressing a question about the product's future. Watts said that "HP has outlined several paths that customers could take -- staying with OpenDesk and its current feature set, adding new features with the help of consultants or migrating to HP's OpenMail solution with HP's help."
But while the direction that Desk is taking now seems plain -- a period of its lifecycle without enhancements -- HP is reluctant to designate the product obsolete. HP continues to include OpenDesk on its Corporate Price List. And when contacted for a comment on this story, HP's representatives said that "CSY's strategy for OpenDesk and other SST products may change as a part of CSY's overall strategy alignment. Therefore, CSY may be doing its customers a disservice by communicating information that may change in the very near future."
The reason for the unclear product strategy lies in the relationship between the HP 3000 division (CSY) and the Software Support Division (SST). The latter group is a part of the Worldwide Customer Support Operation, and takes care of products that are no longer being emphasized or even sold but have a significant installed base of customers.
CSY and SST have been in discussions about better care for some of the SST products, such as Transact and OpenDesk, since the HP World conference. Customers still using OpenDesk have a strong commitment to the product, and some are resistant to switching to the HP OpenMail product offered on the HP 9000. HP recently began offering the services of its Professional Services Organization to assist in such migrations at PSO's standard rates.
While HP is making the switch from OpenDesk servers to OpenMail systems inside its own intranet, and some customers are as well, others can't justify the price or additional administration costs. Jim Royce, manager of Systems and Programming at Santa Rosa Junior College, said that HP's 1995 software releases and its 1994 strategy for OpenDesk changed quickly this year.
"I would love to know why HP made major enhancements to OpenDesk and got my hopes up, and then stopped," Royce said. "I want to know why HP considers OpenDesk to be a mature product."
Royce, who administers a 500-user installation of Desk, said that he might consider OpenMail if HP were to port it to the HP 3000, but OpenMail is only being ported to Windows NT at the current time. Switching e-mail platforms isn't in the college's budget.
"Right now I can't see us moving to another box for e-mail," he said. "Cost is a major factor."
Royce, like some other users, would like to do more with the relatively advanced technology HP introduced to Desk such as Forms and Scheduling. However, those features aren't offered on the PC clients that HP released last year for Desk, "and since the Windows Client doesn't support these functions we haven't been using it."
As this article was being written we heard from a a co-chair of the SIG-EMAIL special interest group that HP was working on a migration promotion to encourage Desk users to move to OpenMail. HP wouldn't comment on the promotion. HP expected to complete with its own migration from Desk to OpenMail by the end of this year.