A community that was built around the in-person meeting celebrates one more in about a month, when the HP World conference convenes in Los Angeles Sept. 23-27. HP CEO Carly Fiorina and her president Michael Capellas will both be at the show in person, the first time since 1999 that Fiorina has stepped on a stage in front of HP 3000 faithful customers. Since this is the first meeting of those two forces since the HP move to exit the 3000 market, some emotions about that business decision might be aired in the LA Convention Center auditorium. At least that’s the loose talk among customers who are still upset about HP’s exit from the market. More certain developments are alreadyon the HP World calendar, like the meeting of SIG-IMAGE/SQL and SIG-MPE, the two gatherings of special interest groups where the highest number of 3000 devotees are usually observed.

SIG-IMAGE/SQL has a meeting scheduled through lunchtime on Wednesday, Sept. 25, the day that Fiorina and Capellas address the gathered multitudes. How big? A count of exhibitors showed 144 firms by mid-August, including at least 35 who offer HP 3000 products or support current 3000 customers. Interex officials will only say that their advance registration is one-third ahead of last year’s meeting, no small feat considering the economic crunch and the reluctance to fly in September. At the IMAGE/SQL meeting, chairman Ken Sletten says that “it is reasonable that we will spend a major portion of the meeting in an extended open discussion of ‘Now What?’’ considering the November 14 announcements from HP. Also planned for the 11 AM meeting is “Discussion of the last round of IMAGE and ALLBASE enhancements by the CSY R&D Lab.” The complete preliminary agenda for the IMAGE meeting went up on the Interex Web site at www.hpworld.com/conference/hpworld2002/sessions/sn030. Attendees of the meeting get lunch, and as Sletten says, “If past years are an accurate guide, you get the same lunch as everybody else.”

Sletten, who’s been the IMAGE chair as long as we can remember, notes that the schedule gives the lunchtime SIG meeting as many minutes as Carly, Michael and HP executives Ann Livermore and Peter Blackmore get altogether. And we’ll bet it still won’t be enough time to hear everybody’s tales of how they feel about HP’s exit from the market. A SIG-ERP meeting led by the Support Group’s Terry Floyd faces off against the SIG-IMAGE meeting. Some SIG leaders are wondering if these 2002 appearances will be their last as 3000-centric groups face a new future.

Sletten and others are pointing to a 2 PM talk on that same day by Dave Wilde on the “HP e3000 Update” as a “must-attend for all MPE users.” The conference, with a members-only admission fee of $1,190, is perhaps one of the last places to have a multitude of HP 3000 customers in attendance, so we won’t be surprised to hear about new product releases still coming out of the 3000 labs. In years past the conference would have capped Wilde’s talk about the product line with a futures talk from Dave Snow, but since futures for the platform have become less strategic for HP, look forward to a discussion on performance on MPE/iX 7.5 at 3 PM. The early-bird registration fee was still in place as we took this August issue to press, just five weeks before the conference is set to open. For more information or to register, head to the Interex site at www.interex.org/hpworld.