The general manager of the HP 3000 division proposed a new funding model with old roots to deliver unmet customer needs: the special project development plan.
As HP 3000 customers asked Harry Sterling why they couldn't designate a new support dollar charge devoted to R&D, Sterling responded with an alternative. If you get a some fellow customers together and agree to pay, HP will get the work done by outside contractors who are already doing some of HP's MPE/iX development work.
The special order program has an essential component. HP is telling its customers who need specific enhancements that don't make HP's to-do list, "Show me the money."
"I'm going to make an [R&D] investment based on the best return I can get for the platform," Sterling said at last month's IPROF Management Roundtable. "There are some things that are important to you that we cannot afford to do."
He suggested "if we could somehow form groups of people who are interested in a particular enhancement and fund it in some way, HP would help implement that functionality by using some of our software partners to help us do that." The plan would keep HP from "using up critical resources that are really focusing on getting the revenue in for the HP 3000."
Sterling identified software development contractors who are already working on HP 3000 projects, such as Allegro Consultants, as the engineering resource for the customer-funded projects. HP's CSY architects would assist in the projects.
Computer and software companies have for years used a similar strategy to spark new product and feature development. In the classic model, a customer with a large investment or the potential for a large sale asks a vendor for something, and the supplier puts developers to work. In some cases, the customer defrays all or part of the cost of development. The supplier takes on the responsibility to support and enhance the product or feature.
Sterling was responding to a proposal by SIGIMAGE chairman Ken Sletten to start an R&D development fund, fueled by a surcharge on all HP 3000 support contracts. "if you add up all the enhancements still worth doing to MPE/iX, IMAGE/SQL, compilers and so forth, it amounts to a huge amount of work," Sletten said in an Internet posting before the roundtable. "I have a strong sense that it can't be done as fast as it needs to be without a major increase in R&D funding for CSY."
Sterling has reservations about such a fund because it's outside of HP's business model. According to the model, the support and HP 3000 divisions are separately accountable for profitability and revenue goals. (See our Q&A with Sterling at IPROF). He also wants "to use my critical resource in a way that going to sustain the revenue stream for the HP 3000, so we can continue to provide you with the functionality you need. It has to be within the framework of HP's business model."
Stan Sieler of Allegro said in reply at the meeting, "We'll be glad to help anyone, so long as we don't run out of time." Sieler also proposed that the Interex user group would send part of the membership fees to HP to fund the projects. "It's the kind of thing that Interex has a good opportunity to work with HP on," he said.
SIGMPE chairman Tony Furnivall promised that by the HP World show in Chicago this summer he'd have a cost-benefit analysis of "what Harry suggested might work" on System Improvement Committee's top 10 enhancement requests.
ROUNDTABLE LEGS: HP said its database engineers are using the SIGIMAGE Executive Committee's Internet mail list to review technical discussions, rather than airing them on 3000-L. By the end of IPROF that commitee had a record-high 22 members, quite a bit fewer than the worldwide readership of the 3000-L listserver. R&D manager Winston Prather said "there's no reason why we can't use 3000-L for a lot of those [database] discussions."... Improvements to Allbase's database optimization will continue, even though HP says it's not in the database business in the same way as Oracle. Jim Sartain cited a recent improvement in the way the optimizer handles IMAGE keys, something that's important when customers use IMAGE/SQL with other relational databases... Those greater than 4Gb files HP is developing for MPE/iX will have a sort strategy, but HP is just now taking on customer partners to develop it... HP is discussing the possibility of a 2- or 4-user license of its smaller HP 3000s, to be offered to developers to cut their costs... Look for a new Web-based catalog for HP 3000 products is supposed to come online this summer, complete with a pricing guide... HP's PA-RISC developer's program is merging with HP's Intel-based developer program, and will offer more aggressive discounts on support contracts and software sometime this year... HP plans to continue building PA-RISC processors "well into the next decade."