The collection of free and low cost products for the Series 918DX continued to improve once HP World wrapped up, and now fledgling developers creating MPE/iX products have even more to look for on the hard disk of the developer's HP 3000. When HP said it would stock the systems with all of its current Native Mode compilers, it meant all of them. Representatives from the Software Support Division who were at HP World said Transact/iX will be part of the bundle. Some Transact fans say the language is the best choice for applications that need to do a lot of IMAGE database transactions. At presstime HP was still investigating if it would include the Dictionary/3000 software along the with bundled solutions. SIGIMAGE chairman and Transact advocate Ken Sletten said Dictionary isn't critical, but it makes Transact more powerful. "TRANSACT/iX can of course perform all functions without compile-time access to Dictionary/3000," he said. "But it's sure a lot better and cleaner if Dictionary is there, especially for large systems with many programs."
Meanwhile, third parties have been scrambling aboard this bandwagon that's starting to pick up speed. In the first days after the show, an 8-mailbox NetMail/3000 with programmatic interfaces got included from 3K Associates. Allegro Consulting extended a 52 percent discount -- matching HP's SPP developer pricing -- on its new HourGlass 2000 utility for Year 2000 maintenance and overall application testing, as well as Allegro's SPLash! compiler to recreate applications written in SPL, a vital language from the MPE V days of the 3000. Those were years with lots of applications for HP 3000s, so having SPLash on the 918DX might be an important way to get the application count back up for the 3000s. Enterprising individuals could acquire MPE V source code from a vendor who's left the 3000 market, spruce it up for use with RISC systems and include client-server functionality -- a kind of urban renewal for MPE software.
But wait, there's more. HICOMP is including the Hiback/iX backup management system on the 918DX at no charge, and SMM Software will be bundling Spinner, a spoolfile post processor, for free. Robelle announced its prices for Qedit and Suprtool: both available for a total of $600, or $400 for either product separately. The only "no" anybody's heard so far is a request to make all of this great software pricing retroactive to existing software developers. HP's Jeff Vance says its negotiations "have been tricky and we don't see this as being realistic right now." But he reminds everybody that "this is just CSY's decision -- individual third parties who are contributing their own software can define their own rules." It's such a compelling package that the 918DX just might lure a few crack developers who are working for large companies, or consulting on contract, into the wonderful world of software entrepreneurs. Let us know when you're ready for some coverage for your creations.
Prices emerged for HP's newest hardware
Just in case you were wondering "How much" when HP started talking about
the new
Series 997s and other hard goods, we got the goods at presstime. The new
top-end
server is priced starting at $327,930 for a single-processor Series 997/100
, with a 100
user MPE/iX license, ARPA Services and IMAGE/SQL, half a gigabyte of
memory, expansion
cabinet for UPS and system disk, system console and a 3kVA HP PowerTrust
UPS. Each
new I/O slot for the extra 9x9 card cage to increase I/O capacity (A1828AZ)
costs $950,
and the new DDS-3 DAT tape Autoloader (A3716A) is $7,999.
The sky's the limit on 3000 technology, HP says
HP gave a talk on future technologies of the HP 3000 right after Harry Sterling spread the good news about the system's renaissance, and we couldn't think of anything that wasn't on the candidate list HP showed off. It's important to note that HP hasn't committed to using any of the technologies they mentioned -- but just as important to remember they haven't ruled the wizardry out, either. It's a lot like the 64-bit message that customers got this year -- not no, just a simple "not yet." Just think of a technology and it appears on HP's list: Merced support, V-class platforms (the latest high-end HP-UX solution), 32-way SMP, very high performance "crossbar" (parallel) backplanes. The upshot of the talk is that HP is serious about using anything it thinks MPE customers will buy to keep the 3000 meeting performance expectations. Think of multiple terabytes of data storage, thousands of users and 30 percent a year performance growth when you think of the HP 3000 beyond the year 2000. (See our October issue for more details, or see the Always Online web site for an early look later this month)
St. Paul offers a faster path to secure e-commerce
While some HP 3000 users wait on the arrival of bundled, secure Web
server software for
HP 3000s -- next year -- St. Paul
Software (612.603.4400) is
bringing a secure solution online right away. The company has upgraded its
Web EC
Internet service to include an extensive hub rollout program and new
software features
such as client-server architecture, field level verification, automatic
form rendering and
Java JDK 1.1 support. Web EC is St. Paul's Internet EDI translation service
provided
through the company's EC Center service bureau. It's a fast path to assist
companies in
becoming EDI-capable. The rollout program lets a company's hubs make their
trading
partners EDI-capable by designating St. Paul's EC Center as the primary
source for
initiating EDI with a hub's vendors. The EC Center is responsible for
communicating with
a hub's trading partners and providing required services such as needs
assessment,
browser selection, set up, access to the Web EC site, testing, training and
technical
support.
Web EC's new features include client-server architecture and the
latest Java
technology, JDK 1.1, as the thin client for the trading partner.
Client-server allows the
software to access information directly from the server and generate forms
for the trading
partner (client) in an interactive environment. St. Paul says the feature
allows hubs to
modify forms or data on the server easily and lets the trading partners
receive the most
current data each time they access the Web EC site. Java technology also
simplifies the
data entry process, because St. Paul uses it to render an easy-to-use GUI
form for trading
partners to complete. The new field level verification improves data
integrity, because it
validates the data that trading partners enter into the forms. Web EC only
accepts
information that meets the criteria previously specified by the hub. Web EC
uses secure
socket layer (SSL) technology to provide security for data. The service is
compatible with
browsers supporting JDK 1.1. If you're a 3000 customer who needs a Web
solution for
EDI, and not necessarily Web software on your 3000, St. Paul's Web EC looks
like it
removes a lot of experimentation and testing.
An all-3000 data warehouse opened its doors at HP World
Bringing years of database experience to bear on a goal that's become a corporate buzzword, Adager, DISC and Robelle teamed up to introduce an all-3000 data warehouse solution at HP World that uses IMAGE/SQL as its cornerstone. The companies are combining their products -- Adager's database transformation tool, DISC's Star Schemas software on top of its Omnidex database indexing utility, and Robelle's Suprtool data extraction facility -- to let you do data warehouses without introducing any Unix systems in your environment. The solution makes better sense when you consider how many companies have mission-critical data already residing in HP 3000 IMAGE databases, prime stock for any data warehouse. Consulting required to ramp up the solution will flow from DISC and Robelle, and the companies' first targets are existing customers with data warehouse plans and a desire to deploy their most reliable system in a data warehousing effort. The Star Schemas makes the difference, an add-on piece of software. (See the October issue for more details)
Look for a new HP 3000 to emerge at the bottom of the 9x9 class
Some early adopters of the 9x9 Kittyhawk class of HP 3000s remember the Series 939s, an easy-to-afford entry into the PA-7200 processors that gave a remarkable bang for the buck. HP pulled the 939s off the price list last year during a cleanup of its midrange offerings, but now admits there's a hole that's developed in its lineup as a result. (One 3000 configuration expert in the channel said the 939 "was too good a deal to keep on the price list," but we won't get into that.) Thankfully, HP now has plans to introduce a new low-end 9x9 system, perhaps in 1998. Meanwhile, HP dropped a hint about the Series 989 system at HP World, saying that a 9x9 "with a middle number higher than 7" would be announced soon, the first to use a PA-8200 processor tuned at greater than 200MHz.
COBOL users got a "not now" on that Fujitsu compiler
COBOL II is just too different from the HP 9000 COBOL compiler's functionality to make it onto Fujitsu's project list for an HP 3000 product. That's what SIGCOBOL members heard at HP World, but the sting of disappointment was dulled a little when HP officials said they were getting serious about making COBOL II enhancements needed to make it a COBOL 97-compliant compiler. Duane Percox, a SIGCOBOL member, said "SIGCOBOL and HP had a very good discussion about how to get the new standards incorporated into a supported COBOL product. HP's willingness to listen to the many COBOL developers and to dialog on this issue is very important to a lot of people." The rising tide of interest in the HP 3000 as a profitable HP product line appears to lifting ships like COBOL, products in use by a good share of the customer base. After all, if you're including a COBOL compiler with the 918DX, it makes sense to consider the product a source of new applications and revenues. We also hear COBOL users out there make fairly extensive use of Dictionary/3000, so including Dictionary on that 918DX makes great sense.
Feeling left out of HP World news? Get on the road next month
If all this news of HP World makes you long for the training opportunity that only face-to face contact brings, there's an affordable alternative next month. The Mid-Atlantic Regional Users Group is putting on a two-day conference at Myrtle Beach, S.C. Oct. 16- 17. For only $130 and $85 a night hotel, the conference will bring training on Linking Legacy Systems to Emerging Technologies, Making the Transition to Enterprise Networks, MPE/iX Today and in the Future, an HP 3000 Management Roundtable, HP 3000 and NT interoperability, Disk Management on the HP 3000 and Using ODBC Links with the HP 3000. It's all offered in a single track so you don't miss out on anything, and some of the presenters -- HP's Kriss Rant, Bradmark's Brad Tashenberg and SolutionSoft's Paul Wang -- gave the same talks at HP World. Then there's the golf and the weather, but well, this is a training trip, right? Call Greg Barnes of MARUG at 804.649.6585 to register; you can pay at the door.