Good news travels slow, so a show in England
with HP CIO Mike Rose helped bring UK 3000 users up to date

He runs the largest Hewlett-Packard computing operation in the world. That doesn’t necessarily mean that HP CIO Mike Rose has the last word on what should be running across an empire of 120,000 users. But Rose had strong words for HP’s continued commitment to running its own operations on HP 3000s.

The CIO who’s been in charge of HP’s internal computing strategy since July 1997 spoke at this year’s HP Computer User’s Association (HPCUA) HP Systems conference, held in the Midland UK new town of Telford. Rose, a keynoter on the conference’s second day, said that keeping a commitment to continue the use of hundreds of HP 3000s was easy — when he considered how well the solutions are working.

“I don’t feel like I’ve got a gun to my head to get rid of them at all,” he said. “This is an excellent division, and their products really do get the job done. We’ve got this resource, so now we can harvest it, milk it.”

Rose said the significance of counting the number of HP 3000s running in Hewlett Packard versus other platforms was a bad measure of their importance. “Count disk drives if you want to count something,” he said. Numbers of systems Unix stand almost 10 to 1 against the 3000 in HP’s 10 datacenters — but the system continues to handle lifeline kinds of missions such as payables and order management for the entire company.

“The 3000s today still provide us with tremendous capability,” said the 20-year HP veteran in his presentation. “We’re very excited about the IA-64 announcement for the 3000s. Without it, it would have been just another data point against it. And of course,” he joked, “the price is quite attractive as well.”

Rose said the official IT community is 6,000 strong in HP, “and you do feel supported and challenged at once.” For example, the company’s COE desktop strategy that delivered a set configuration to minimize costs to organization has taken more than four years to become a standard in HP. “This was not mandated, but in classic HP fashion, it was argued about,” he said. Only 37,000 of the company’s desktops were using COE in 1994; it didn’t reach a majority until 1996. “It took some time to build up that trust,” he explained.

His advice for attendees ran to diversity. “Encourage an open market and realize you’ll have a mix of environments,” he said. “When we’re going to acquire a company, we have to ask, ‘Do we tear apart what we just bought, without gutting the value?’ ”

Customers at the conference might have been asking if Baan was gutting the value of its recently acquired subsidiary Coda. The Dutch firm bought the maker of the ISA financial solution in the summer, then announced just before the show that it wouldn’t be making any significant enhancements to ISA for HP 3000s, AS/400s or Digital systems. It’s full speed ahead for Unix versions, leaving 3000 customers muttering at the meeting.

“I don’t think Baan realized there’s an entrenched 3000 community out there,” said Paul Strike of mining concern ARC Central. “We have virtually every other bespoke [custom] application in our operation looking at the ISA database. Hopefully, somebody will buy [Coda’s 3000 customer base] from Baan.”

European regional business manager Ivica Juresa confirmed that HP had begun talks with Baan about just such a move in the weeks after the conference. Potential suitors were being discussed on the conference show floor. Juresa said HP is trying to promote the idea of a buyout of Coda by its managers. Baan announced serious losses at the end of October due to a tough market in its primary ERP business. The company restructured and began layoffs of 20 percent of its workforce, perhaps paving the way for a Coda buyout.

HP’s Juresa said later that the US-based strategy of winning new 3000 business around applications in healthcare and credit unions obviously wouldn’t apply to the European market. “The five verticals only translates for the US,” Juresa said. “The good thing for Europe is that we have other strong verticals, as well as horizontals, to help us achieve growth.”

Instead, Juresa said applications are succeeding there which don’t have much presence in North America for 3000s — such as a pathology solution, which sold 12 new HP 3000s in the last year, and investment banking software.

Juresa confirmed at least two of the announced target verticals for 3000 growth as high prospects for European growth. Smith Garner Associates has begun to open offices in Europe, looking for a place to market its MACS II mail order solution among what Juresa identified as 6,000 mailing catalog companies. Airlines offer growth prospects as well through the Open Skies organization, which now is owned and managed by the HP 3000 division.

Manufacturing is also much stronger for the platform in Europe, a region that Juresa said is generating at least 30 percent of the total HP 3000 business. More than 300 different manufacturing solutions are available for the system across the continent, including 150 in Germany alone. US-based eXegeSys is the only non-European solution in serious partnership there, making some headway in France.

Juresa said the 3000’s fiscal year just ending had one distinguishing factor in Europe: new installs. “This was the first year we really got a lot of new business,” he said. The business manager reported that HP doubled its 3000 revenues in the UK for the year, “and our biggest problem is getting enough people” in HP to help with the business. Toward that end Juresa named Emmett Hayes as regional marketing manager for the UK and the Nordic countries.

“The market here is big enough for smaller software companies,” Juresa said. Working in the confines of a country is a good business model for suppliers of 50 to 200 people, and crossing country boundaries isn’t necessary to succeed.

The distribution sources in Europe are as diverse as its solution suppliers. Juresa said 32 different distributors deliver HP 3000s across Europe. Ingram Micro and PSL source to channel partners, and some larger channel partners such as Riva buy directly from HP.

HP CEO Lew Platt said just before the HPCUA conference that HP is looking to Europe to make up its lost sales in the Asian economies. Juresa said the prospect looked good for the 3000’s rebound to help. “We’re really growing like crazy,” he said. HP mailed its first European-wide marketing materials in many months to the installed base just after the conference. The mailshot, as it is known in the UK, went out across Europe in 18 different versions. For marketing to prospects who don’t currently own HP 3000s, “we do seminars or other events,” Juresa said. “The attitude of the market has really changed. We’re not a bad brand of proprietary system anymore.”

Even though news of the advances in technology was slow to travel to the European customer base, resellers on the show floor predicted the impact wouldn’t spark much new business for the 3000. Alan Yeo of Affirm, which supplies the QED manufacturing solution for HP 3000s, said applications remain the focus for UK customers.

“I don’t see IA-64 as being a critical factor in the UK, mainly because of the size of the systems,” he said. Smaller HP 3000s are more common in the 200 or so companies using the systems. “The only thing that could motivate an upturn is applications, especially from UK vendors,” he said.

A light turnout for the conference was the talk of vendors on the show floor. One popular explanation was a colossal tie-up on the local freeway on the second day. A jam caused four-hour delays on the M6, the primary road leading to the Telford site, a commuter location just minutes from the Ironbridge Industrial Revolution Heritage park. Other attendees said the focus on technology at the show — multiple training sessions for HP environments were offered — doesn’t fit the customer base anymore.

“It’s an indication of the market in this light attendance,” said Ewart North, an HPCUA member and attendee of UK conferences for more than 15 years. “Real users are becoming less and less interested in the technology. It’s in the applications.” North, who was leaving a support position with Baan’s Coda within a few weeks of the show, said, “The customers I have contact with haven’t even heard the news of IA-64.”

One new HP 3000 application being touted at the show was Riva Software’s RivaStore, a Warehouse Management System in place at four UK retail chains and retailing distribution centers. Salvesen Logistics regional operations manager Chris Taylor showed attendees how the Riva solution helps his company manage 150,000 different products for retail chains such as the House of Fraser, all hosted from an HP 3000.

John Petersen, a senior technical consultant at Riva, said that installations at customers such as garden supplier Hozelock, Roseby’s Curtains and Linens and Allied Carpets have given Riva a chance to fine-tune features for the application. Implementation is down to a four-month period from a year, and Riva will be using its existing business connections in cash tills across the UK. Harrods, British Tel’s phone shops and post office counters use tills installed by Riva, managed by NT systems.

“Riva’s main business is retail,” Petersen said. “We see RivaStore as a good lead in for direct mail.”

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