OMI: hasty sales exit, but longer support
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OMI: hasty sales exit, but longer support


If a customer is looking for someone to blame in the Open Market Web server disappearing act, they could do worse that look in Bill Gates' magic top hat. When HP cut the deal to license the Open Market Web solution in 1995, Microsoft didn't even sell a Web Server. Now that Microsoft bundles its IIS product with Windows NT servers, all the rules of the market have changed. Open Market started changing its product focus early last summer, developing the transaction niche of Web services with the release of transaction-based solutions that works with many Web servers.

HP will be announcing an end-of-support date for the Open Market software that's running at customer sites, but HP's Daren Connor said support will continue until that deadline. "I want to be careful that you aren't saying 'HP won't support the product,' " Connor said in an interview in late June. "We will."

How long that support will last hadn't been determined at presstime. Would HP's customers be better served not to deploy the Open Market server software they received this spring as a bonus for buying a new HP 3000? Connor had this advice: "That's somewhat up to each customer to decide." He said HP has told its customers "it's not a strong strategy to take delivery of the Secure product." No one can, since HP held up shipping Secure Web Server.

As for OMI's announcements, no public notice had emerged from the company by mid-July about its Web Server support plans. She added that OMI had stopped selling the Secure Web Server product and would support existing customers. The company will also continue to enhance the Secure product in areas where it would improve the integration with OMI's Transact Web transaction server product.


Copyright 1997, The 3000 NewsWire. All rights reserved.