Few customers who've weighed in on the change have been surprised at HP's intentions, but many don't see this as any good for a 3000 community just learning of the new patch practices. "This is not good," said Allegro Consultants president Steve Cooper, whose company supports HP 3000, HP-UX and Sun enterprise users, among others. "They are following Oracle's moves now, trying to put all third-party maintenance companies out of business. Starting a month from now, you have to have a current software contract with HP to obtain patches."

Cooper noted earlier this year that Oracle had turned the patch and software pricing model upside down, making the Sun Solaris environment free, but turning all patches into a paid-only commodity. HP explains its pricing change from all-free to all-paid by saying that it's moving to industry-standard practices.

This change brings HP in alignment with accepted industry practices for software patch delivery and ensures entitled customers and partners are provided with the most current software patches for their IT environment. In addition, standardizing on key patch availability services reduces structural cost and enables HP to provide better support on the standardized access points.

HP's policies cover all of its Enterprise Storage, Server and Networking product lines, including the HP-UX Integrity systems and HP ProLiant servers. The ESS group was the only HP business sector which continued to post lower sales in the company's latest quarterly report.

The revenue of a support contract has typically gone to HP's support divisions. HP 3000 customers complained to their vendor about this disbursement in the 1990s, when few HP 3000 problems generated a need for support expenditures, but the 3000 division had a severe need for enhancement and development funding.

HP is ending all FTP download access for the patches while it starts payment for access through the HP ITRC. "Customers should check their existing support agreements to confirm they are covered, or they may obtain a valid support agreement with software update support," it stated on the web page.

An email to users who get HP's critical and recommended patch notices says that "Patch access will be through the ITRC support portal. You need to have a valid ITRC user ID and password and will now also need an active HP support agreement that includes Software Updates linked to your ITRC profile to access Patch content and services. We urge you to review your current support coverage now to ensure you have valid coverage and can maintain uninterrupted access to Patch." A Web link takes concerned customers to a chat session with HP representatives.

A software media update level of support -- for the sites which can still order one for their server -- appears to satisfy HP's new need for support money.

Valid support agreements must contain at least one of the following Offers:

    • HP Software Updates Service
    • HP License Subscription Service
    • HP SW Media and Documentation Updates Service 

It's not clear right now if having an HP support agreement for any of the enterprise systems would enable a customer to gain access to HP 3000 MPE/iX patches. HP hasn't created a patch for the system in two years, and the company shut down its HP 3000 development lab at the end of 2008.