In a responsible effort to recycle more than 30 years of programming code, Hewlett-Packard has decided to re-purpose MPE/iX as a social networking application. The news we received from a usually reliable source reports that HP has been searching for an appropriate future for the HP 3000 operating system for more than seven years. Executives have hit on a new social network as an ideal mission for the 33-year-old software.

"We're reaching to become more popular with customers younger and less gray than the 3000 community," said HP spokesman Ben E. Fitforeyou. "This MPE/iX software isn't going anywhere unless we do something about it, and HP is willing to take its chances and charge into the future. We see MPE/iX as a way to bring thousands of computer professionals together for significant social interchange."

A coalition of user groups and advocacy boards, including the DEL/3000 Special Interest Group, the New Wave Association, and HP's Business Report Writers, have agreed to be a test bed for the MPE/iX revision. A core of HP's retired 3000 developers are rolling up their sleeves on the technological transformation, expected to be completed by December of 2010.

"There's a big change a-brewing for MPE/iX," said D. David Brown, the development leader directing the core team from Montange d'Mystere, Switzerland. "I've been waiting more than 20 years for something as important as this."