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From: schuh@demon.siemens.com (Christian Schuh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: HP Hype (new role for ADUS)
Summary: 10K dead end, DomainOS migration path, ADUS mission
Message-ID: <59723@siemens.siemens.com>
Date: 30 Apr 91 19:04:01 GMT
References: <910427181103.2a79@CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM> <1991Apr28.061037.8050@midway.uchicago.edu> <42148@netnews.upenn.edu>
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Organization: Siemens Corp.Res. Inc.,Princeton, NJ
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In article: <42148@netnews.upenn.edu> Chris Shull writes:

>At the Mid-Atlantic Chapter meeting of ADUS Thursday, we put Rich Wilkie and
>Alan Holbrook from Chelmsford on the grill about where the 10K 2 upgrades
>were, and received what seems to be an honest answer.  Rich's perspective was
>that HP/ASY was now seeking a new firm to fabricate the 10K 2 processors, as
>the orignial firm cannot, although he was not confident that one could be
>found.  With respect to software, the 10K will continue to receive upgrades,
>support and bug fixes.  He also suggested that an attractive trade in program
>to HP 700 Series systems was being considered.  

Well, since I was the guy that started this DN10k stuff in the meeting, I feel I
should relate to the net, what has become now the official HP answer, given to
me one day after the ADUS meeting.

The PRISM II upgrade is dead! No other company trying to build the chip - no 
nothing!! If the answer of any of the HP reps there was honest, then they were 
quite uninformed to say the least, since within HP this situation is known for a
while. They even appointed a guy (Ken Goldner - DN10k program manager) to ex-
clusively handle the task of dealing with affected customers.

Now what? I have a nice DN10020 with lots of RAM and diskspace (of which I
can't use any in other DN-type boxes, right?), which is basically as fast
as a Sparcstation 2, or should I say as slow, given the performance figures of
the Series 700 in comparison.
We had ordered our PRISM II upgrades in November 1990. HP now offers, to take
the amount comitted for the DN10000X cpu boards, and carry it over into a pur-
chase of a 750 (or even two) at significant discounts (40% and then your end-
user discount == 40% + 24% --> 54.4%). Example: We had ordered 3 10kX boards for
$47k - we can now use these $ 47k to buy Series 750 stuff at the specified dis-
count.
That's nice, but what do I do with a 750, if it doesn't fit in my Token-Ring 
network running Domain/OS yet, if it will not run OSF/1 until November or 
December of 1991, which means if I get it I have to support yet another pro-
prietary operating system in HP-UX??? 
It is like: Me, trying to buy two more apples to add to my fruitsalad, and HP 
says: sorry, we don't have them, but we can give you 5 potatoes instead!

>With respect to protecting investments in general, I would venture that HP is
>doing a better job of protecting our Apollo investments than Apollo would be
>able to do from the Chapter 11 state they would probably be in by now if HP
>had not bought them.  ...

Highly hypothetical. HP bought Apollo with the obvious goal to destroy it, and
to force old Apollo users to buy the new HP stuff. They don't understand what
they bought, and I believe they never intended to even try. This is also clearly
reflected in the attitude of your average salesperson from (original) HP.
Once my salesrep handed me the 'HP Test and Measurement Catalog' with water
in his eyes, telling me that this was the HP bible... Did he understand my needs
as a Domain/OS user, or what? [True story, btw! :-)]
I'd rather have seen another company buy Apollo (actually, when the first ru-
mours came up back then, I thought for sure Siemens would buy it. Too bad it 
didn't happen), and try to preserve and enhance what Apollo accomplished.

>The facts that HP has limited resources, and that ADUS' mission is to foster
>the ability of its members to solve problems using HP/Apollo systems, imply
>that one of the main goals of ADUS should be to help everyone switch to OSF
>on HP's new, strategic platform as quickly as possible.  This would lead to
>better concentration of resources on everything from hardware, through
>software, to support.  Further, it would defragment the HP installed base and
>encourage third parties to develop for that OSF platform.

Well, that's one way of trying to ease the pain of Apollo users. The other,
and YES, I still haven't given up on it completely is, to try to convince HP,
that the Series 700 will only be a full success, if Domain/OS will run on it!
Us Apollo users deserve not to be left behind. And OSF/1 is no answer yet.
OSF/1 is too far into the future - realistically most people will not jump on
it before version 2.0. They claim Domain/OS is not dead yet, but they are not
running it on their best available computer? 
So I guess it is dead, then, isn't it?

>Thus, ADUS has an educational mission to its members, to explain the simple
>economics that mandate a rapid change to OSF (yeah, I know it isn't even
>shipping yet, but "rapid" to me means 2 or 3 years instead of 4-6).

Well, my definition of "rapid" changed last Friday, when the HPollo sales guy
told me, that our $100000 (just hw) investment in our DN10020 became obsolete 
in less than two years! That's rapid, indeed! Simple economics, eh? 

>Anybody have any other ideas? :-)

No ideas - just shaking my head.

Thanks for reviving the Midatlantic Chapter of ADUS. I think regular meetings
are a good idea. Thanks for all your work.

>Christopher E. Shull                   Chairman, Mid-Atlantic Chapter of ADUS