The 3000 division made a first effort at getting the 3000’s advantages compared to other computing platforms, as it released a Web document of its cost of ownership brochure. The document which will be available in print this fall compares the HP 3000’s three-year cost of ownership to the AS/400, a platform that the brochure’s author Rachel Kornblau said is a leading competitor to the e3000. The AS/400, which Kornblau said is offered as the same kind of packaged solution as the e3000, costs 27 percent more to own over three years, according to the brochure. The document also offers customer testimonials about the relative ease of operating a 3000 versus other unnamed platforms, and a chart of how the e3000’s cost of ownership is measured over the processing power of four different 3000 models and against typical IT costs from a Gartner Group report written this year.

The AS/400 comparison was the only specific platform mentioned in the brochure, information gathered from a 1999 TechWise research paper, Are Proprietary RISC servers More Expensive Than Their Unix Counterparts? HP’s own servers running Unix, Linux and NT were not compared to the 3000 in the brochure, a decision HP made before committing to the project. See it online at the 3kworld.com site, www.3kworld.com/newsroom.asp?appmode=itemDetail&news_PK=2484.