Licensing the CHARON emulator solution at the Dairylea Cooperative has been some work, with some suppliers more willing to help in the transfer away from the compay's Series 969 than others. The $1.7 billion organization covers seven states and at least as many third party vendors. “We have a number of third party tools and we worked with each vendor to make the license transfers,” said IT Director Jeff Elmer. 

“We won’t mention any names, but we will say that some vendors were absolutely wonderful to work with, while others were less so. It’s probably true that anyone well acquainted with the HP 3000 world could make accurate guesses about which vendors fell in which camp.”

Some vendors simply allowed a transfer at low cost or no cost; others gave a significant discount because Dairylea has been a long-time customer paying support fees. ”A couple wanted amounts of money that seemed excessive, but in most cases a little negotiation brought things back within reason,” Elmer said. The process wasn’t any different than a customary HP 3000 upgrade: hardware costs were low, but software fees were significant.