HP e3000 transition program

As always, HP values our customers and looks forward to continuing to provide them with best-in-class services. If there are additional questions, please contact HP.

Source Code Access
Hewlett-Packard is in the process of creating a limited number of fee-based source code licenses that will allow third parties to use MPE/iX source code as reference material for providing technical support to HP e3000 customers, where technical support includes investigating problems, developing workarounds, and creating instruction-level, binary patches. The license is targeted at those third parties whose business model is to provide technical support on HP e3000 products. The source code license will be effective on January 1, 2011 following the Limited Support period that ends on December 31, 2010. The source code being provided as part of the license includes most of the MPE/iX operating system core, most of the MPE/iX networking products, and the TurboIMAGE/XL database. In addition, the source code may be licensed to a few third party software vendors for use as reference material to better interoperate their products with MPE/iX. If you are interested in becoming an MPE/iX source code licensee, please contact HP right away.

This announcement does not reflect a change in HP's continued strong recommendation that customers proceed immediately with planning and implementing transitions off the e3000. The HP e3000 transition web site at http://www.hp.com/go/e3000 contains information on HP and partner-based tools, resources, training, and services.

For additional information, please visit our Source Code Access FAQs.

Computer History Museum
To help preserve the history of the HP 3000 and MPE, Hewlett-Packard intends to make a broad donation to the Computer History Museum. The specifics of the donation have not been finalized, including the date(s) when the donated materials would be available for public access, but the donation will likely include MPE/iX source code, printed and electronic documentation that span the history of the HP 3000, and representative members of the PA-RISC-based HP e3000 family of servers loaded with a range of MPE/iX releases from 5.5 through 7.5.

Jazz Web Server Content Availability
On December 31, 2008, Hewlett-Packard will be discontinuing the availability of the Jazz MPE/iX external web server. Jazz (http://jazz.external.hp.com) has been the home for e3000 focused technical presentations, documentation and software contributions from HP and non-HP authors.

Prior to decommissioning Jazz, most HP-contributed content will be moved to either the ITRC. http://www.itrc.com, or the official HP documentation server, http://docs.hp.com, for continued accessibility by our customers. Content requiring download such as compiled software and non-HP authored content cannot be moved. If you require any of this content please download it as soon as possible.

The MPE/iX lab is open to exploring with 3rd party providers the possibility of hosting the HP and non-HP content on their servers. We will provide more information in our next communication.

HP 9000 to HP 3000 Conversion Update
In June 2004 HP has stated that under very select circumstances, HP would consider HP9000 to HP e3000 conversions on a case-by-case basis (for further details, please visit http://www.hp.com/products1/evolution/e3000/info_library/update1.html). There has been no need for such conversions in the past years due to adequate supply and demand in the secondary market with the exception of recently reported shortages of the HP e3000 A-class systems. HP no longer has the required parts to perform such conversions and effective immediately, HP will no longer consider any potential conversions.

HP e3000 DSPP Program
Effective on December 31, 2008, the DSPP program will no longer provide HP e3000 software media to DSPP members. However, other non-e3000 DSPP programs (both hardware and software) are still available to the existing DSPP members. HP appreciates all the contributions the developers have made to the HP e3000 community over the past several decades.

Obtaining PowerPatches and SW Media
HP strongly recommends that customers request all available PowerPatches and SW Media that they may need for the remainder of the life of their e3000 systems, before December 31, 2008. Customers under Mature Product Support without Sustaining Engineering (MPS w/o SE) can still request PowerPatches and SW Media during the remainder of the Limited Support Extension, through their local HP Representative or Contract Administrator; however, processing and delivery time may vary.

Please also note that the ability to order software through the ITRC Software Update Manager, http://www.itrc.com , will be discontinued after December 31, 2008 as Software Update Services support ends.