The cooperative company OpenMPE Inc. wants to draw customers to its Web site right away, to help HP see why it should assist the firm which is dedicated to preserving MPE and the 3000. A simple survey in two-page PDF format is available at www.openmpe.org, asking customers if they would support the new organization’s mission to enhance and protect the HP 3000 community’s lifespan though software development and creation of an emulator that mimics the HP hardware on Intel processors.

The document is called a Letter of Intent, but it's not a binding legal contract, according to OpenMPE officials. It is a serious display of your company's desires. By completing this form, you indicate that should HP enable OpenMPE, Inc. to take over support of MPE, it is your company's intent to purchase a membership, assuming that the cost is less then or equal to your current HP software support costs. If you are interested, click the link above right away. They need the signed letters before the HP Solutions Syposium on April 3, 2002. (The letter is in PDF format, so Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to read it.

OpenMPE board chairman Jon Backus said the results of the survey will be shown to HP next month. Backus and his board want to give the vendor a clue about what portion of the 3000 community which is choosing to remain with the HP 3000 is also supporting OpenMPE. To determine how much of the community is choosing to stay, OpenMPE is relying on the newest online survey from user group Interex, posted at that organization’s Web site at www.interex.org/advocacy/survey/migration02.html?OpenMPE. Six questions on that survey ask about migration plans, but the last two poll customers on their support of OpenMPE Inc. and HP’s willingness to investigate that organization’s goals.