Quiz gives no more answers for some
February 14, 2008
3000 community members reported in November, December and January that their Quiz 5.01 report writer, a mainstay on thousands of HP 3000s at one time, warned them it would expire on Feb. 1. True to its warnings, the software for some customers has quit running, as well as QTP and Quick
Tom Combs of Telalert alerted the community on February 4 about his Quick and Quiz applications
On January 1 2008 they started issuing warnings that they were about to expire; on February 1, they did expire. These were supposed to be perpetual licenses.
Cognos product manager Bob Deskin, who shepherds the PowerHouse line of products, confirmed that these 3000 customers are coming to the end of a 20-year license. Their option is to call a Cognos sales representative — which may lead to some fee to pay to the company which IBM announced in November that it would purchase.
"PowerHouse 5.01 (QUICK/QUIZ/QTP) on MPE was licensed for 20 years," Deskin said, "as was clearly stated in the terms and conditions of the sales contracts. We did not start perpetual licenses until later releases. Anyone still using PowerHouse 5.01 should contact their Application Development Tools (ADT) Sales Representative."
John Pickering, a PowerHouse consultant to the 3000 and DEC communities, characterized the license as " a 20 year 'test drive' without paying any license fees!" Deskin said these 5.01 versions will be expiring as of this month. Many operate in 3000 shops with little remaining HP 3000 budget.
Customers who are still paying support to Cognos might have options within their service contracts to get Quiz running once more. The software became omnipresent in the 3000 community as MANMAN rose in popularity, since Quiz was bundled with earlier copies of the MRP package.
Deskin said, "Contacting the ADT sales rep is our best advice for customers so they can clarify their support coverage or determine what next steps if any need to be taken. Versions 5.01 and prior were sold with a 20-year license and subsequent versions were sold with perpetual licenses."
For the record, Cognos and IBM closed their $5 billion deal to make Cognos part of Big Blue one day before these licenses expired. The official release about closing the deal made no mention of the ADT group:
IBM acquired Cognos to accelerate its Information on Demand strategy, a cross-company initiative that combines IBM's strength in information integration, content and data management
Through this acquisition, IBM and Cognos will become the leading provider of technology and services for business intelligence and performance management, delivering the industry’s most complete, open standards-based platform with the broadest range of expertise to help companies expand the value of their information, optimize their business processes and maximize performance across their enterprises.
While the acquisition releases touted partner acceptance of business intelligence products from Cognos, at least joining the IBM fold has uncovered a more direct link to the PowerHouse products Web page. What used to be available only by going to powerhouse.cognos.com is now on the main Cognos products Web page, albeit in a drop-down menu.