Execs praise 3000; some customers question veracity

In a subject which some customers have an insatiable appetite for, HP's praise for the e3000 is being questioned by some of its most avid customers. The Commercial Systems Division (CSY) put together a brochure that summarized the praise which HP's top executives heaped on the 3000 at the latest HP World conference, a document designed to help sell the system to those who don't know the 3000 at all. Once the document got downloaded by the user community, however, its tone of enthusiasm didn't pass muster with some longtime users.

The document (downloadable from the HP Web site at http://www.mpeixservers.hp.com/info_library/broch/59803746.pdf) includes comments from HP CEO Carly Fiorina, and HP Vice Presidents Ann Livermore and Duane Zitzner. All three of the executives praised the 3000 in stories reported in our October issue, and their comments are in the online document with only some modest editing. (HP removed the references to the 3000 being as reliable as a Volkswagen Beetle, and Zitzner's story about it being just like the hammer he and his father used on the family farm.)

Presented as marketing collateral, however, the comments didn't ring with an adequate amount of enthusiasm for some customers posting messages on the 3000-L mailing list and newsgroup. HP's marketing coordinator Colleen Mueller explained that the document, to be available only as an online download in PDF format, is one of a series that CSY has created to push the 3000:

"We really just developed this as an awareness piece, with no plans for a mass mailing," Mueller said. "Through a variety of avenues, including internal e-mails, distribution via our distributor [Client Systems], our Web site and our partner Web site, we've gotten the word out that the document is available on request. At this time we don't specific plans for a follow-up brochure, but we are always developing new brochures and information sheets."

CSY has been busy making documents like the executive praise sheet for the 3000, available at http://www.mpeixservers.hp.com/info_library/index.html which include an e3000 Internet application brochure mentioning Enhydra, e3000 having what it takes to use the Web, and the first cost of ownership comparison by CSY between the 3000 and the AS/400.

The division has also begun to present a video of these executives' speeches at user group meetings of the HP 3000 faithful, with associated HP 9000 customers in attendance. We screened the 12-minute tape at the recent Greater Houston RUG meeting, brought along by CSY's Internet and Interoperability R&D manager Alvina Nishimoto. The tape shows the top three executives in HP heaping praise on the platform — and because some time has elapsed since the customer outcry over lack of executive attention to the 3000, it plays as a pretty compelling commitment to the platform.

Some customers complained that the new executive comments brochure doesn't sizzle with pure marketing hype, while others defended the CSY effort as a good beginning. We're just glad there's something to debate about, with the promise of more to come. Now we're waiting for the HP e3000 product roadmap to sprout some new years. HP's been promoting the document as a five-year-plan for several years by now, so it's really become a two-year view. You can look at those two years at http://www.mpeixservers.hp.com/info_library/broch/roadmap.pdf

Watch out for 6.5 install instruction errors

HP's making it clear that not all 6.5 installations will result in better performance, as we reported in our October FlashPaper, and some sites might see slower execution in some cases. But you can get no execution at all -- a failed install -- if you follow the instructions included in the 6.5 Instant Information CD. There are errors in the install instructions version on the CD shipped with the 6.5 release. Paul Edwards, who teaches 3000 classes on a contract basis for HP, gave us this warning:

"A major caution is the problem with the 6.5 installation manual on the CDs. The Software Maintenance Manual for 6.5 appears to have several serious errors in the Instant Information CD (50726-10378) version. It looks like the step numbering was reset at each paragraph which should not have occurred. An example is in section 5.7 "Add-on and Update Tasks", in step 3, the logic says to go to step 16 or 17 which don't exist. I see this problem in several places in the manual. It makes it unusable for a system manager who is trying to do some very critical tasks, especially if it is the first time through this process.

Edwards adds, "I would advise anyone doing update/install/patch tasks not to use this copy of the manual. The PDF (50726-10387) format of this manual on CD is better, but has errors in this same section. These problems will cause additional RC calls during operating system updates and installs after system volume set disk failures."

Edwards said that the errors in the PDF version which he found are "1. Page 123, Chapter 5, Section 5.7, Step 14: Step 16 should be Step 15, Step 17 should be Step 16; and 2. Page 200, Appendix A, Step 5: java2 should be java." You can download the PDF version from the HP Web site, if all you have are the Instant Information CD instructions. Go to the HP documentation Web site at docs.hp.com

Interex executive Piercey to resign; board vote makes quorum

The HP Users Group Interex will have a new executive director next spring, as Chuck Piercey announced his resignation effective March 1, 2001. Piercey, who's 66, said he'd always intended to retire at the end of 2001, but another offer prompted him to accelerate his resignation date. In a letter to the Interex board, he said, "I have an opportunity to go with a very small, non-profit, altruistic, educational foundation on a four day a week basis. The subject of the education effort (molecular nanotechnology) will keep me intellectually challenged but the size and academic orientation will provide a much less demanding and more flexible work schedule and will not carry the same physic responsibility as my position at Interex. It will free up time for my two wonderful grandchildren before they are too old to be interested in 'Grandpa.'

"It was a difficult decision to leave Interex because of the people -- the board, the other wonderful volunteers around the world, and the staff at Interex as well as our UK counterpart. However, it was an opportunity that might not come again. It has always been my goal to leave Interex in good shape and in good hands. Interex is currently in good shape with an experienced management team."

Board chair Linda Roatch accepted Piercey's resignation with regret, saying that "He is largely responsible for bringing Interex forward to what it is today -- the most successful vendor centric independent user group in existence." We share that regret, and look with great curiosity to the search and replacement process the Interex board will pursue in the next four months.

That board will have at two new members in a few weeks. We learned at the recent Greater Houston RUG conference that the just-completed Interex board election was a successful one, because enough ballots were cast to make up a quorum. The winner of that election is Vickie Timms, a Unix administrator at the First Union Bank of Charlotte, N.C. and a longtime volunteer from the MARUG regional user group, one of the few still hosting regular meetings. Interex also appointed a new board member according to its new bylaws, naming Gaylord Maines, managing director of KPMG's health care provider practice, to a seat. Both Maines and Timms start three-year terms in December on the seven-seat board.

Bigwords.com shuts books on S-G Web venture

Well-known dot-com ventures started closing shop recently, and one of the casualties was an HP 3000 site running the Smith-Gardner WebOrder/Ecometry software. Bigwords.com closed its doors in late October, despite $60 million in investment funding from the likes of broadcast network NBC and several venture capitalists. The San Francisco-based company had been a favorite reference account for Smith-Gardner in 1999 when the deal to install S-G's online retail software was inked. But despite an infusion of $30 more in third round funding early this year, the college textbook Web-based store cancelled all pending orders.

The demise of BigWords.com continued a trend of dot-com deaths in two categories -- the industry in general, where Pets.com folded up shop in early November, following the demise of Petstore.com; and S-G's dot-com customer base. This summer Smith-Gardner marked the beginning of a slide in its stock price when it announced it would have to write off a major sale of its Ecometry product when a dot-com customer folded up before it could even get online. Since then, the leading seller of new HP 3000s has targeted more traditional retailers for new sales, companies already established with storefronts who want to get Web sales going alongside their brick and mortar retail business. Dexter Shoe Company selected Ecometry to launch its e-commerce operations this summer, expanding an enterprise where the company's shoes are sold in 102 countries through department stores, shoe shops, and the Dexter Factory Stores. Dexter has been in business for more than 40 years.

HP suggests consultant help for upgrades

But your favorite HP division, the Commercial Systems Division (CSY), has an opinion about which release you should be upgrading to. A CSY message which was sent to round up consultants into the HP 3000 Training and Consulting Referral Network and the HP e3000 Service Provider Program included this opinion: "We would encourage most customers to update to the 6.5 release, since that release contains many performance and capacity enhancements for high-end systems and bundled tools for using the HP e3000 with the Internet. Additionally, the 6.5 release will be supported longer than 6.0." CSY lists consultants on its Web site with search engine access at http://hp3ksrch.external.hp.com/servlet/grservlet00, but we did not see a “upgrade help” check box on the search options. Independent consultants favor a 6.0 path. Outer Banks Solutions' Steve Cole says that "We are recommending that customers on 9x7 systems go to 6.0, as the support life for OS is the same as the hardware. For customers running systems with less than four processors that don’t require features within 6.5, we are recommending they go to 6.0."

Tracert has been pulled from 3000

After an introduction as a beta-test patch to MPE/iX in 1999, the network analysis tool tracert has been pulled back from the 3000 for an indefinite period. Earlier this year the software was causing system aborts with Token Ring and FDDI networks on 3000s. HP started distributing patches to its Network Services (NS) software, including the current GR patch, NSTFDM1(for MPE/iX 5.5), NSTFDM2 (for 6.0) without the tracert code due to this problem.

James Hofmeister of Hewlett Packard's Worldwide Technology Network Expert Center
reports that "The initial attempt to code tracert introduced multiple system aborts, and this functionality has since been removed from all patches until it is reworked. I do not have an ETA for when tracert will be available."

A new Apache version is available, but not yet supported

CSY lab engineer Mark Bixby made the latest version of the Apache Web server available for HP 3000 users, but version 1.3.14 isn't yet supported by HP as an official MPE/iX release. HP supports the 1.3.9 version in its Web Wise Secure Apache/iX Server, and is supposed to be making 1.3.9 ready for support as a bundled release. Bixby, who did the initial port of the Web server to the 3000 as a personal project before joining the CSY lab, put the 3000 version in lock-step with the official apache.org collection of Open Source code recently. He gave us the details on the newest release:

"1.3.14 just happens to be the release to which all remaining MPE diffs were submitted. It was only chosen simply because it was the next available release to submit accumulated changes to, rather than because of any specific new features.

"Detailed change information can be found at http://www.apache.org/. The changes since 1.3.9 include a few functionality additions, but mostly consist of bug fixes and portability improvements. What I gather from lurking on the Apache developer's list is that most of the major functionality work is being done in the Apache 2.0 tree, which is still progressing through alpha releases.

"So I guess reasons for a 3000 user to want to upgrade to a currently unsupported-by-HP 1.3.14 would be 1) if you were experiencing a bug that was fixed in 1.3.14 (as far as I know, nobody has ever reported anything like this to the HPRC), 2) if you were an ISV or consultant and it was important to you to familiarize yourself with the latest & greatest technology, or 3) you just enjoy using the gcc tools to build Internet opensource applications."

HP 3000 meetings sprawl over February

The travel schedules for committed e3000 managers will rev up in February, when three significant meetings are scheduled for a 10-day period. The Interex HP e3000 Solutions Symposium is set for February 7-10, a four-day training fest to get educated on the latest technical innovations for the platform. EDI, XML, storage advances, security and the Web-enabling tools for the 3000 will all be examined. Full details are available at the Interex Symposium Web site, http://www.interex.org/conference/hpe3000solutions2001. First on the agenda is a keynote from division general manager Winston Prather — and the show does fall into the timeframe in which CSY has said it might start shipping the new N-Class systems, so there may be hardware release news available as well. We'll be there to see what's unveiled, and hear what's announced.

Just two days after the Symposium ends, the SIG 3000 meeting kicks off to bring together the leaders of the Interex Special Interest Groups. This year's meeting, Feb. 12-14, returns to the roots of the gathering that puts HP's smartest customers in touch with CSY engineers. The SIG 3000 meeting takes place at the HP labs in the Oak Room in Cupertino, Calif., where six years ago what was called IPROF first took place. Check the Interex Web site for more details on how to register for SIG 3000, and to sign up for the Solutions Symposium as well.

At almost the same time, the Florida Regional Users Group is holding its 5th Annual HP Performance Training Seminar, at the Hutchinson Island Marriott Beach Resort & Marina. The Feb. 13-16 meeting includes sessions on MPE/iX Performance taught by Outer Banks Solutions' Steve Cole and Gerald Dillard, IMAGE performance led by Bradmark's Brad Tashenberg, Web performance from an HP engineer, IO performance taught by Bill Lancaster and Robelle's David Greer, and Lund Performance Solutions' Bob Lund giving a keynote and Lund's Scott Pierson leading another MPE/iX performance session. There's also HP-UX and network performance sessions and an HP update -- perhaps another opportunity to deliver news on new 3000 models. See the full agenda and cast your vote to register at the FLORUG page, http://www.florug.net/EVENTS/events.html, a place in Florida where every vote will be counted.