Annotations to Migrations
September 11, 2008
HP has stopped talking to the 3000 community about migrating from the platform, at least in public forums. The last message we heard was at June's HP Technology Forum. In the PowerPoint slide set for an update on migration strategies from the vendor, we spotted a slide with migration successes.
Some 29 of them, to be exact, listed as HP's examples to prove a migration is possible. This list looks impressive in a single PowerPoint slide. But it deserves some notations, especially from a historic perspective. Migration is possible, happening, and an appropriate business decision for some customers. However, HP's list of 29 includes some very old projects, software vendors with deep staffing, as well as some companies carried to Unix or Windows by a third party app vendor.
About one example in three won't fit the majority of the 3000 community situations. Also of some note: not one example of home-grown to packaged app migrations at the HP migration success Web page. We didn't see that factoid in the PowerPoint slides at the Forum.
To get your annotated success list, just click on this link to have our PDF downloaded. And to be fair, we should point to the original HP slide set from that Tech Forum presentation (a much larger file, as PowerPoints usually are.) HP once listed a set of HP 3000 success stories right alongside the migration tales at its Web site: That is, reports about companies staying with the platform. Some of those tales were newer than the migration successes; the vendor's presentation at the Tech Forum showed a Web page snapshot with these stay-put success stories. Alas, they're now gone.
HP's message at the Tech Forum included a lot of migration counsel, from getting off of PA-RISC Unix hardware to replacing the IBM System i (AS/400) servers with HP's Unix systems. Since IBM has no plans to shut down that System i (AS/400) business anytime soon, you can expect a steady stream of advice on what HP calls the "Infinite" migration story. HP believes that "Companies are still using the [System i] because they don’t know there are other options."
HP said at the Forum that Infinite is for customers who
- Have a full set of source code and core application functionality supports the enterprise
- Are looking at a five-year plan to migrate to new application but need to support users in the interim
- Want the flexibility / cost savings of AS/400 elimination but cannot otherwise replicate AS/400 functionality
- Have a migration initiative with an opportunity to further solidify your industry position by replacing AS/400 systems as part of the project
The Infinite message was delivered by HP's Alvina Nishimoto, who also provided the success report on migration away from HP 3000s. Whether it's IBM's integrated business customers or the HP 3000 community, Hewlett-Packard needs to attract its HP-UX customers from somewhere.