The questions didn't really matter at this year's HP World Management Roundtable. All ears were tuned to answers, explanations about HP's plans for the 3000, declining support marks and sales dissatisfaction. In more than an hour of discussion, HP executives assured customers that a multi-platform forecast for their sites won't hurt the 3000's prospects.
Interex anticipated the concern among the HP 3000 customer base and brought the "What about the 3000" question to the roundtable first. The Interex Advocacy Group changed the format of the roundtable, hoping to keep customers moving through questions by giving them time for floor responses early in the two-hour meeting. The plan delivered more focus on 3000 issues, if not more questions answered.
Chris Sieger of the advocacy group told the HP panel that a strategy which offers HP-UX and NT as application platforms that can interoperate with the HP 3000 "is the same as giving the 3000 a death sentence. Without new applications, a platform dies. We don't believe that's really protecting the investment of your customers in the 3000."
The advocacy group had other issues for HP to address, too. "There doesn't seem to be any research on moving the 3000 into the future," Sieger said. "Applications are the lifeblood of any system." When HP says that smooth transitions to new applications are part of its 3000 plan, Sieger said "that implies that these new applications mean new platforms."
Commercial Systems Division General Manager Harry Sterling responded directly to concerns that HP's coexistence strategy for 3000s will hurt the system.
"Looking at everything running on the 3000, and having it run in isolation would indeed be a death sentence for the 3000," Sterling said. "It would become isolated in this world that is moving very rapidly toward integrated and unified platform environments."
"Our strategy is to continue enhancing and growing the existing environment and existing applications -- and the new applications that are moving to the 3000 platform. The second part of the strategy is to make sure the 3000 continues to evolve in the future, and can play in the world of client-server computing. That's why we're porting Web server products and porting Java to the 3000."
As examples of how HP is improving the 3000, Sterling reported that HP is beginning the planning for the 6.0 release of MPE/iX, including support for new RISC chip technology, supporting FibreChannel interfaces and "investigating the 64-bit functionality and how we will take advantage of that in the future."
The makeup of the roundtable differed in one notable way this year: The head of HP's Computer Systems Organization was on the dais. Dick Watts was not bashful about setting a different course for the cooperation between HP's Unix business and its loyal 3000 customers.
Watts said the 3000 "does have a unique role to play, but more importantly, the 3000 installed base represents an enormously important part of our future, no matter what technology we deploy in that installed base. The skills with which that division and the field teams and support organization are helping people with, and in some cases beyond, the 3000 are vital skills to our long-term success as a systems company. I can assure you [the 3000] is a very key part of our long-term strategy, and Harry has our full support in delivering on those commitments."
Sterling said that the connectivity of the 3000 will ultimately give customers a broader range of applications to use than MPE/iX alone could ever deliver. But those applications will have to include platforms such as Windows NT and Unix.
"I ask you not to view the changes in the industry and technology as something that belittles the HP 3000," he said, addressing the lack of application growth for the HP 3000. "There seems to be a tendency for application developers to move to the latest technologies, and to leave behind better environments that existed in the past. As a hardware and software vendor, the challenges we face are to bring all of those things together. We're in the midst of that with coexistence between our Unix and MPE platforms. The reality is that we have to be the best at integrating all of those environments."
Watts, appointed to head HP's systems business after Wim Roelandts left the company early this year, used his first user group appearance to assure customers HP's future strategy includes MPE.
"I've learned an awful lot from being at this conference, and an awful lot from this particular session," Watts said. The "subtle" messages about more investment in the HP 3000 -- delivered with the usual passion by customers happy with their systems but wanting a better future for them -- prompted a promise from him. "I think we'll take those [messages] to heart," he told customers, drawing a round of applause. "I expect a very aggressive advertising budget to be submitted by Harry [Sterling] in the next few months."
Rich Sevcik, HP's leader in its Intel/HP project, was also on the roundtable, adding comments designed to soothe the concerns of customers. Sevcik noted that more than 1,000 engineers are working in his area on the new HP chip technology, "and that technology is flowing into the HP 3000 (see our story on PA-8000 in this issue.) And we at HP are putting applications onto the 3000, and I think that should send a very strong signal to application developers that we're very serious about the future of the 3000. As we went to our Mainframe Alternative Program, we used the HP 3000 as a very strategic component of that program."
Not all the questions covered the concern over the HP 3000. A significant segment of the roundtable discussed support and sales issues that include but aren't limited to the HP 3000 market. Watts noted that HP intends to use its technology, especially the Internet, to communicate better with customers who complained about sales deficiencies for the fifth straight year and support difficulties repeatedly. Watts has posted a Web page for himself called Ask Dick Watts to draw in comments and critique of HP's policies and processes.
In responding to questions about future 3000 technology development, Sterling said the Platform Solution team work on defining processes for the 6.0 release includes a 64-bit investigation. He said HP expects to have "more details on actual functionality as we move through the next year."
HP also said that the SST software arm of the Worldwide Support Organization is forming councils with the HP 3000 division to set priorities for enhancements to MPE V. HP will look at the investment of the installed base in setting those priorities.