While Interex-Europe was asking HP to do a better job of managing the Transition — and reconsider forcing a transition on the 3000 community — Interex North America headed full steam into the world of migration advice for HP 3000 customers, following HP’s lead. It’s not that there’s no wisdom on Homesteading from Interex, but the newest element is its advice on Migration. Interex is introducing a Migration track as part of the Interex e3000 Solutions Symposium in early April, three days of specifics that include using AcuCOBOL’s new GT compiler to migrate COBOL code, switching to HP Eloquence to replace IMAGE/SQL, and implementing MPE file systems under Unix (a really big difference according to experts, since Unix has a file system that’s impoverished compared to the abundance of information in MPE’s file system). But the most interesting day might be the Saturday of the April 3-6 affair in San Jose, where four hours of discussion cover running MPE applications under Linux and the OpenMPE movement. You can register for the 3000 training — which also includes Homesteading topics like three days of Ecometry application instruction, and lessons on using Perl, Debug, and the non-secure Apache Web server and WebWise secure server — at the Interex Web site, www.interex.org/conference/hpe3000solutions2002.

Meanwhile, HP is launching its first salvo in the push toward migration with a one-hour Webcast on January 22. Browse to the HP 3000 Web site (www.hp.com/go/e3000) to sign up for the broadcast, which requires a Windows PC and browser as well as a phone line and starts at 11:30 EST (18:30 CET in Europe). HP promises the time spent online will deliver “a high-level look at the processes involved in moving from MPE/iX to HP-UX, Linux or a Windows operating system.” Budgeting for the migration might be a serious part of the planning HP hopes its 3000 sites that migrate will be doing this year; we don’t yet know if the costs will be discussed at part of the high-level look, or if that detail will be saved for the segment where customers see “what HP is doing to help make this change easier.”