Accepted wisdom about the HP 3000 has the latest release of MPE/iX getting the most attention from HP in the months remaining until the vendor's exit from the market. But other versions of the OS are getting their due, too. When I tried out that accepted wisdom on support provider Gilles Schippper of GSA during our Q&A for the July printed edition of the NewsWire, he gave the companies not using the latest MPE/iX some hope:

Q. It seems that 7.5 is, for the moment, the only MPE release certain to get the latest bug fixes and enhancements.

A. Well, I don’t know about that; the three supported releases right now are 6.5, 7.0 and 7.5. HP’s announced it will be supporting all three until the end of 2006. The latest release of a PowerPatch was for 6.5, PowerPatch 4, just a few months ago. In May HP released PowerPatch 3 for 7.0, and they’re talking about PowerPatch 3 for 7.5 in early 2006. I think all three operating systems are actively being supported and enhanced.

HP, of course, will be pointing out this work in its communication with users next month at HP World. Whether there's time for any more patch work on 6.5, probably the most widely-installed version of the OS out there, remains to be seen. But don't overlook taking on one of these PowerPatches — nicely-bundled up collections of HP's patches for MPE — if you're on HP Support. So long as you're still paying HP its monthly fee for support, you might as well get something tangible out of it, even if your 3000 rarely requires a support trouble call.