Traffic on the OpenMPE discussion group included frank commentary by Jeff Vance, the HP engineer who sits on the board of directors of the OpenMPE movement. Vance, who wasn’t speaking for HP in an official capacity, still had encouraging words about the MPE licensing prospects for a hardware emulator. He didn’t think HP would collect the license fee (expected to fall between $400 and $1,100) more than once, rather than yearly . But he added these are challenging times for a 3000 customer, whether a homesteader or migration-bound. “It is a tough job to migrate off the 3000,” he said. “It is also potentially risky to remain on the 3000. If an emulator works, as I except it can, then you will have the option of staying on current, cheap hardware while protecting your software investment at the same time. But the emulator has risks too: will the vendors stay in business, will they continue to support it, will it work as advertised, are there better (non-MPE) apps and tools out there that your company should start using?”