HP quiet on boardroom, speaks on SSEDIT
September 18, 2006
After HP CEO Mark Hurd stayed mum on company boardroom misconduct during his opening speech of the Technical Forum here in Houston, the 3000 group inside HP said the company would issue a statement about modifying 3000s without HP support help.
Hurd said only that HP "had gotten a lot of press last week" before beginning his prepared remarks. The company's stock is at five-year high, despite the threat of indictments of HP employees over the "pretexting" scam that snooped into private phone records. Over the weekend HP revealed that it had tailed a reporter and one of its board members during its leak investigation.
The vendor's employees closer to the 3000 community had more to say about the privacy of data, this time in the systems' stable storage. HP's Jennie Hou said during this morning's e3000 update the company will be releasing a statement on HP's policy regarding changes to the stable storage contents of HP 3000 systems. Such changes are possible, without HP support intervention, using the SSEDIT software from IRS4HP and Advant support.
"Our customers have recently requested more clarity on e3000 upgrades in terms of hardware," Hou told a meeting room of about two dozen attendees in the session following Hurd's speech. "We're working on releasing an official policy statement, later in 2006. We will reiterate the things that are very consistent with HP's expectations. For example, for systems that running MPE/iX, the need to have the right level of software licensing. Upgrades to the hardware should be through an authorized path."
"If there are modifications to licensing or stored information, they do need to be conducted by HP's authorized personnel," Hou added.
Hou said the vendor believes there is an even balance today between supply and demand for HP 3000 hardware. The availability of 3000 hardware on the open market, nearly three years after HP stopped building new HP 3000s, could be an issue in relying on third parties to change model strings and PA-RISC hardware personality with SSEDIT.
HP's message about making changes outside of HP support services "gives the customers the information they need to do the right thing," Hou told us after the update.