A pair of HP engineers, steeped deepest in HP's 3000 development and post-2008 planning, announced they will leave HP at the end of May — the same month that the current e3000 business manager is handing over his reins to another HP 3000 veteran of more than 20 years.

Jeff Vance and Mike Paivinen will accept the Enhanced Early Retirement (EER) offer from HP for 2007, leaving behind decades of work on the HP 3000 and MPE/iX, as well as more than five years of service to a 3000 community in transition. Dave Wilde, who's been the HP 3000 "virtual division" general manager and e3000 business manager since 2002, reports that he's taking a new HP post to work in a vertical industry team that serves HP's Health and Life Sciences business.

While HP cannot replace the resource which Vance, Paivinen and Wilde represented to the 3000 community, the company will be carrying on their work in development, advocacy and management with current 3000 staff. Jennie Hou,  a veteran of more than two decades of 3000 experience who's been working as one of the e3000 R&D project managers, takes over for Wilde as business unit manager. Hou was HP's representative at the HP 3000 conference hosted last fall by the Greater Houston RUG, and she spearheaded this spring's announcement of the new Right To Use MPE/iX license.

While Vance has made the five years after HP's exit-the-market announcement bloom with MPE/iX enhancements, marshaling beta test patches into customer hands, Paivinen served as HP's liaison to OpenMPE — keeping the advocacy group updated with HP's long-range plans and current software procedures.