Conference to take on HP perspective

Some HP 3000 veterans are calling it the last gathering of the MPE community. Others point to an ascent of a new HP customer constituency at a conference long ago ruled by 3000 issues. Regardless of where an HP 3000 customer looks this month, the formula for HP World is certain to show signs of change, the same assimilation that’s roared through HP during the last year.

When the year’s biggest HP user show last convened, the event was owned by Interex and driven by cooperation between the independent user group and HP. The design of the 2003 HP World conference — a meeting in Atlanta that carries important messages for the HP 3000 sites who are sticking with HP in their transition to other HP platforms — unveils a show where HP and the Compaq customer base have a larger voice.

One content manager for the show said that HP World will stand as an example of what’s changed about HP since the merger. Greg Cagle believes much of HP has come under the influence of Compaq’s managers, including this conference.

“Much of HP is now actually Compaq,” Cagle said, “and HP World is no exception. Maybe the 3000 crowd isn’t tuned into that because it doesn’t really affect them, or they don’t see the symptoms — but it has really been a reverse acquisition in a lot of ways.”

Interex Executive Director Ron Evans explained that no formal sale or transfer document was signed when the group made a brief announcement in February creating a joint venture for this year’s show. But the user group no longer holds exclusive control of HP World, as it will now split the profits and responsibilities with Encompass, the vendor-funded Compaq user group.

Interex will receive a greater share of HP World’s profits than Encompass, Evans said. HP is also a partner in the show — and it offered thousands of prospects the steepest discount to attend less than two weeks before HP World opened.

Evans said the changes are meant to build a bigger show, one with greater participation from the parts of HP which were once represented at a Compaq technical show called the Enterprise Technical Symposium (ETS). Interex, which often has relied on its annual show to keep the 29-year-old user group profitable, should reap as much financial reward in years past, Evans said.

“There wasn’t a legal document signed per se,” he said, “but [we agreed] to join forces for a more comprehensive event. During this economic malaise that we’re in right now, getting folks to free up the time and resources to come to conferences has been increasingly difficult. We tried to marshal the best of the users groups and HP.”

That difficulty can be observed especially in the HP 3000 community, where customers, volunteers and vendors could be seen steering around this year’s meeting. Although 3000-related meetings and sessions stretch from Monday morning to the show’s close at lunchtime Friday, volunteers and a customer base in transition were reporting that Atlanta wouldn’t be a training or networking stop for them this year. Two Special Interest Groups — the groups focused on topics that make up a serious share of HP 3000 content — were still looking for volunteers to lead their HP World meetings with less than 10 days before it opened. SIGs based on the Web and Java, two cross-platform technologies, were both in search of session leaders.

Volunteers from the HP 3000 community ran both of those SIGs, and the 3000 core group had a history of making conferences in the late 1980s and early 1990s lively events. Volunteers still play a role in the show, Interex Volunteer Coordinator Gayle Crossley said, although this year’s efforts include input from Encompass and HP.

“It’s a very different year,” Crossley said. “We still have quite a bit of volunteer support, and the program committee is still in existence to help devise the program. This year it was expanded to include the Encompass group.” She added that the volunteer presence has been reduced for luncheons and booth support. The user group itself doesn’t have a booth on the show floor for the second straight year.

The conference boasts a lot that is new this year, from an HP “Whisper Room” promising a peek at product secrets to the first meeting of a Special Interest Group devoted to the Itanium Processor Family. Nearly 600 sessions are scheduled, but fewer than one meeting in 10 is on the MPE Track.

In its quest for efficiency, the joint venture has tried to streamline the paper submission processes, although some presenters were feeling more like they were being corralled. Speakers reported that their PowerPoint slides would be pre-loaded for the first time on HP-supplied laptops in each meeting room. Some of HP’s speakers were being told to bring their own laptops, while all speakers were being told not to modify pre-submitted presentations.

Some HP 3000 experts complained about having their papers passed over during the selection process. Some talks that were suitable for this spring’s Interex e3000 Solutions Symposium were bumped to alternate status. Former Interex board member Cagle explained that the paper selection process had to accommodate the needs of the Compaq/Digital user communities. The new process used focus groups to select papers.

“In the past, HP World was assembled by a team of volunteers, who managed the various tracks and scheduled the sessions using a database and scheduling system at Interex,” said Cagle, who manages this year’s HP-UX, Linux, IT Director/MIS Manager, Oracle, Middleware, and Nonstop tracks. The Encompass model for its ETS show “has been to run actual customer focus groups, and then actively recruit papers based on the results. The track management and scheduling was then handled by staff members, working with the volunteers as needed.”