About 170 customers took the time to tell HP which MPE and HP 3000 system enhancements matter the most to them, and the top vote-getter was letting the A-Class and N-Class systems run as fast as their chips will allow. Those computers — all of the A-Class models, and a few of the lower-powered Ns — are throttled down today, some say by software that’s loaded into the 3000’s processor-dependent code when the systems leave the HP factory.

Weighing in at numbers two and three on the ballot results were putting all of the HP 3000 documentation on the Internet, in particular the HP Customer Engineer hardware manuals not currently available on the Web, and producing a “parking” PowerPatch for 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5. That parking PowerPatch would include all General Release patches, and arrive by this coming Oct. 31 via the Internet. Customers also asked for a parking release of MPE in the 2005-2006 timeframe. Many HP customers who participated in the Feb. 15-26 balloting want to see their vendor give third party firms the right to use the SS_CONFIG software after HP ends its 3000 support at the end of 2006. You can see the whole lineup of requests at the Interex Web site, www.interex.org/advocacy/survey/2003mpe_results.html.