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HP

HP/COMPAQ Publishes OS/product Roadmap 377

Posted by timothy from the thinning-the-herd dept.
jacexpo069 writes: "You can find it here , however, the highlights are HP Omnibook, HP Kayak, HP Vectra, HP Jornada and HP Netserver all being phased out. TRU64 phased out, however OpenVMS lives on. Read all the gory details in this detailed roadmap "
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HP/COMPAQ Publishes OS/product Roadmap More

HP/COMPAQ Publishes OS/product Roadmap

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  • Good news about the iPAQ line: (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Subliminal Fusion ( 253246 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:10AM (#3482456)
    "Smart Handhelds

    Decision: The Compaq iPAQ(TM) Pocket PC, re-named the HP iPAQ Pocket PC, will be our smart handheld platform. The best of the current HP Jornada technology will be engineered into the platform. Jornada products will be phased out of the market in 2002."

    Good to know that they were smart about their handheld lines and decided to stick with the iPAQ (not that there was really much doubt, but...). The iPAQs have been on the leading edge of things for a while now, if they would only integrate something more than SD (and *not* CF type I like the Jornadas had) into the unit...

  • Awesome. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Wakko Warner ( 324 )
    OSF/1 (nee TRU64) needed to die a slow, painful death.

    And, now it shall.

    - A.P.
    • HP-UX is the second worst UNIX I've ever been
      forced to use (SCO being the worst). I used to
      go into screaming fits every time I had to log
      into a HP-UX box because the damn thing didn't
      even support tty modes correctly.

      At least OSF/1-Tru64 (at one time) had good
      release engineering. But it started going downhill fast once DEC started massive layoffs.

      RIP DEC. We didn't know how good we had it...

      • Actually, I sortof like HP-UX. The LVM and HA software is among the most trouble free implementations I've ever come across. Compiling stuff is a PITA tho, and whoever is responsible for the include files seems to have a fetish for disabling anything and everything common to modern UNIX unless you set several defines to get through it.

        It's definitely gotten better in HP-UX 10 and 11; the releases before that were horrible. It still has some really annoying behaviour tho... memory allocation and reboot-on-changing-kernel-parameters, altho that's changed in 11i for some of it at least.

  • Even Carly couldn't kill VMS... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by imac.usr ( 58845 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:12AM (#3482465) Homepage
    TRU64 phased out, however OpenVMS lives on.

    VMS will outlive us all, if there's any justice in the IT world.

    (rest in peace, DEC.)

    • Amen. Having extensive VMS experience on your resume is definately a way to get yourself noticed. Even in a job where there is no VMS. People seem to remember it.
    • Spoken like a gentleman.

      Amongst its innumerable other virtues, VMS running on a VAX is pretty tough to beat for security...

      ... of course thats mainly just 'cause VMS scared the hell of the hackers.
      • 'cause VMS scared the hell of the hackers.

        do you mean hackers like Mitnick [all.net]?
    • Here I sit, an ageing VMS dinosaur...

      But it may yet make a comeback. VMS' main disadvantange has been that it ran strictly on proprietary DEC architecture, and it was hugely popular just as long as DEC hardware was hugely popular. Now that it's being ported to Itanium, I think it has a chance to recapture a significant portion of the market share it used to 0wn.

      Relative to Unix, it has no significant technical drawbacks that I know of. As far as advantages over Unix goes, it's at least much better documented, as the bookcases behind me can attest.


      • > As far as advantages over Unix goes, it's at least much better documented, as the bookcases behind me can attest.

        Built-in features out the gazoo.

        Just last week I was looking at man lpr to see if I could change the priority on my big print jobs in the queue to let other people's smaller jobs past. Nope, but su can reorder them by hand. Sigh...

        How I miss thee, O VMS. And how I wish there were a free{beer,speech} version for x86.

    • Geez! I don't know what's with you OpenVMS chaps.

      Over here, we get have an OpenVMS machine, because we get some data in OpenVMS BACKUP format. When the number of files in a directory exceeds 4000 or so, doing anything in the directory becomes almost impossible! Deleting files takes about 1 sec/file!
      VMS has some nice features, but the CLI is too clunky.

  • Wow (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CaptainSuperBoy ( 17170 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:13AM (#3482478) Homepage Journal
    You knew this stuff was coming.. I thought they'd kill HPUX for sure, though! DEC Unix (aka compaq tru64) finally dies.. it was truly a legendary OS. That's the only thing that surprises me about this roadmap. Maybe it's just because I used DU more than HPUX.

    The rest of it is pretty predictable. I mean, I never even heard of a damn HP Kayak.. wtf is that? Of course OpenView and Insight Manager both have to stay, due to their ubiquity. iPaq kills Jornada hands-down. Compaq trounces HP for business desktops.

    And let's see.. printing.. there's no clear winner there. HP's got a LaserJet in every office in the universe.. But don't rule out Compaq, they are great at rebranding plastic Lexmark inkjets!
    • I mean, I never even heard of a damn HP Kayak.. wtf is that? Of course OpenView and Insight Manager both have to stay, due to their ubiquity. iPaq kills Jornada hands-down. Compaq trounces HP for business desktops.

      HP Kayak's are Intel based workstation class machines, similar to Compaq's Professional Workstation line.

      HP's desktop line ain't half bad either.

      Calum

      • Yeah, the Kayak can RIP, but the vectra is a loss to any tech that ever worked on em. I can strip a vectra VLi8 by removing exactly one screw, the torex 15 that holds the backplane to the case, otherwise the case is completely toolless. A motherboard swap takes aproximately 15 seconds =)

    • And let's see.. printing.. there's no clear winner there. HP's got a LaserJet in every office in the universe.. But don't rule out Compaq, they are great at rebranding plastic Lexmark inkjets!

      In redards of rebranding, did you know that for most HP laserjets (if not all) the printing mechanic is manufactured by canon? HP only provides the formater (logic, driver connected end), and the brand, the rest is done by canon.

      • Re:Wow (Score:2)

        by s390 ( 33540 )
        ...did you know that for most HP laserjets (if not all) the printing mechanic is manufactured by canon?

        HP is not really in the printer business anymore: they're in the ink and toner cartridge business, and it's _very_ profitable.

    • They sure as hell won't be selling Lexmark printers after the merger. Lexmark is owned by IBM. IBM is HP-Compaq's #1 competitior now. Why on earth would they retail a compeitior's product? Or why would IBM even sell it to them in the first place?

    • HP-UX is profoundly weak in several areas. If Carly had come out and said "the new TruHP UNIX will unify the strengths of HP-UX and Digital OSF/1 UNIX on ia64," I would have thought her to be much more reasonable.

      Really, the tru64 kernel should simply replace the HP-UX kernel, with the important addition of Veritas support.

      Now would also be a good time to redesign the software packaging mechanisms and implement something like RedHat up2date.

      But instead, HP throws us the same old trash. I hope their market share continues to erode.

  • HP is going to end up with a rather large market share in PDAs with the combination of the jornada line into the iPaqs (iPAQ Pocket PC).

    Aren't the iPaq and the Jornada the market leaders in WINCE devices?

    I am also suprised to see the rest of Compaqs iStuff living on... since lots of it is crap.
  • I wonder if all those products we paid for that run on AlphaVMS will run on Itanium VMS. It would be sweet though. Didn't DEC or Compaq come out with some sort of compatibility product during the VAX to Alpha transition?

  • Time Warp (Score:5, Funny)

    by BeagleBoi ( 87688 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:18AM (#3482504) Homepage
    HP also will deliver on the previously announced Compaq OpenVMS(TM) roadmap, including the port to ItaniumHP also will deliver on the previously announced Compaq OpenVMS(TM) roadmap, including the port to Itanium

    Imagine going back in time 15 years and telling someone that HP would be releasing OpenVMS.

    "You mean that HP bought DEC?!?!"

    "Ah, no, HP bought Compaq who had bought DEC."

    "Compaq bought DEC!?!?!?!?!?"

    • Hewpaq only got the parts of DEC that Intel hadn't already bought.

      --Blair

  • Kind of like office space (Score:4, Funny)

    by OO7david ( 159677 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:19AM (#3482507) Homepage Journal
    Consultant 1: And that brings us to Mr. Compaq TrueUni-- TrueUniee-- TrueUni-ever gonna work here again!
    Consultant 2: And that Michael Bolton too!

  • PA-RISC & HP-UX (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MaxQuordlepleen ( 236397 ) <el_duggio@hotmail.com> on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:20AM (#3482517) Homepage

    So who is going to buy these machines now, with the "In-box upgrade to IA-64" the only future for (some) current PA-RISC machines?

    As it is, the uncertainty around the merger and the coming death of PA-RISC *must* have had a negative effect on sales of HP Unix machines. Anecdotally, the one customer I support who was on HP-UX and an HP 9000 has migrated over to Solaris on Sun hardware.

    Any HP employees out there who can shed some light on this murky "strategy" ?

  • Emphasis on Inanium (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:24AM (#3482534) Homepage
    There's a surprisingly strong commitment to Intel's Itanium line. This despite the fact that the industry consensus seems to be that it's a loser. Even NonStop (the old Tandem product line), is supposedly being migrated from MIPS to Itanium.

    Inanium exists only to give Intel an architecture that can't be cloned for patent reasons. It's not better; it's just different. So it's best that it fail.

    No mention of calculators. Will they stay in that business? HP made, and makes, great calculators. Had to put new batteries in my HP-11C today, after fifteen years.

    • I love my 1985 HP-11C [hpmuseum.org] as well... I wish they still made them, as I'd buy a few more for members of my extended family who are turning 12. What a great way to learn how to write simple programs; registers, stacks, etc.

    • Re:Emphasis on Inanium (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      No mention of calculators. Will they stay in that business? HP made, and makes, great calculators. Had to put new batteries in my HP-11C today, after fifteen years.

      I hear you. I grew up around HP test equipment and such and bought a HP-48 in 1993, I had a HP-11 in highschool. I always associated the HP brand with quality.

      The bad news is that HP is going down the tubes.

      The good news is that HP spun off their test and meaurement division a couple of years ago as Agilent [agilent.com].

      I have been pleasantly surprised in dealing with Aglent. For example, I purchased some parts for an HP stethoscope from their online store using a credit card, I got an email the next day telling me that the parts had shipped an that they were not charging my credit card because I was a student! They had my money, but they gave it back!

      So, my point is, they got the names backwards when they spun off Agilent: People looking for the old "HP way" should look to Agilent, people who expect HP quality from the new "HPQ" are in for a surprise.

      I guess they did not know what to do with the calculater division when they split. I am sad that it went to the HP part, because if they had given it to Agilent I might be posting this on my '69gx calculator.

  • Sing with me now (Score:4, Funny)

    by oldzoot ( 60984 ) <morton.james@co m c a st.net> on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:24AM (#3482535)
    Wer'e on the road to nowhere......

  • Well, 20 years later and things have come full circle for Compaq. From the roadmap it looks like they'll be phasing out the Compaq name from most everything with the notable exception of business/consumer pc's. After forays into high end servers, laser printers, RISC/VMS (i.e. DEC), pda's, Compaq has come back to it's roots.

    Maybe Compaq should come out with a 20th anniversary luggable just for old times sake? Hey, that's not a bad idea. They could put an lcd instead of a crt, mount the floppy/hd on one side and the dvd/cd on the other. Now that would be cool. Maybe one of those case mod'ers can get cracking on this one.

  • The Compaq name will dissapear... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by c.r.o.c.o ( 123083 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:41AM (#3482598)
    From what I can tell, the Compaq name will be kept only on a few categories of devices, especially business class ones and consumer laptops. Everywhere else, the lines will either be discontinued or they will be rebranded.

    I don't want to sound like a troll, but in a couple of years (maybe a bit more) Compaq will go the way DEC went a while back.

    HP will keep it alive just long enough for customers to get used to the change. Then it will dissapear from all refferences, products and documentation. HP will stop updating the Compaq product support sites, and eventually will even stop hosting them altogether.

    You don't believe me? Try a google search for DEC, and you'll see how many Compaq hosted docs and web pages you will find. A couple of years ago I needed technical info on a DEC dual P classic workstation for a school project. It would have been a pretty fast machine, and I had 2 p200Mhz available to plug into it (up from the single P90Mhz that I found inside). After 4 hours of continuous searching for the jumper settings, I gave up and salvaged another slower computer.

    This is the same that will happen to Compaq soon enough. Ironic, isn't it?

  • Old Out, New In (Score:2, Interesting)

    by BeagleBoi ( 87688 )

    It looks like Hewlett Packard have been working hard on this change while the whole stockholder vote/battle was going on.

    Even so, I was still taken aback when the familiar Flash-driven "Powered by Compaq" icon at the Yahoo Mail site was replaced by a "Powered by HP" icon today.

    What other changes have people seen?

    • Middleware

      Key Decisions: The new HP will be equally strong on UNIX, Windows® and Linux-based servers, requiring middleware solutions to support all platforms...

    • Workstations

      Decision: We will incorporate the strength of Compaq's Windows NT workstations to form the industry's broadest, most comprehensive product line. ...[Kinda makes you wanna barf]...HP workstations will provide great value across the industry-leading 32- and 64-bit operations system environments: Windows, Linux and HP-UX.

    Is it just me, or is the lack of mention under servers significant?

    O well, Linux has come this far without depending on either HP or Q, it doesn't need HPQ either.
    • The purpose of this document is to tell customers what is going away. Linux isn't. You would not believe how much customer action Linux has been getting of late. If I took all of the sales presentation invitations I get, I'd never see my 2-year-old again. HP has to go where the customers are, and they are asking for Linux.

      Bruce

  • Curious choice of words there, HP (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xcomputer_man ( 513295 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @12:59AM (#3482664) Homepage
    Read this:

    "The new HP will be equally strong on UNIX, Windows® and Linux-based servers, requiring middleware solutions to support all platforms."

    (emphasis mine)

    How do they expect to require .NET to support UNIX & Linux? The only other middleware option of significance here is J2EE, and that already supports all the platforms anyway. Mono, IIRC isn't anywhere ready for production use.

    On the other hand, I think it is good to see them affirm equal attention for the three dominant platforms.

    (I can almost hear the OpenVMS folk coughing loudly now...)

    --
    <insert witty remark here>

  • This saved me days* of development work! (Score:3, Funny)

    by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @01:11AM (#3482694) Homepage Journal
    So I spent a couple of hours researching communication device driver implementations for both HPUX and Tru64. "They" want prototypes by the end of next week, however I go on vacation next Tuesday.

    Guess which proto I don't have to do anymore?!?!?!

    (* okay, not days. But the initial developement effort was "rounded up" to days in true software engineering style. Its still a win-win situation for me.)

  • I hope they bury all of the HP SAN gear in one of those vaults meant for nuclear waste.

    Compaq SAN gear is really top shelf stuff, with proper standards compliance, multi platform capability (even HP-UX), the best performance characteristics and bullet proof redundancy. (I'm helping to set up a six shelf Compaq FC SAN with twin redundant HSG80s and 10 OpenVMS hosts this week, with room left for some Intel gear. Really slick stuff). The SAN gear is one of the best things they got from the Digital purchase - I've used the exact same controllers, with the exact same CLI, from DEC years before Compaq got them.

    I've seen the HP gear (re-badged Hitachi, in reality) in our head office, and it vigorously sucks donkey balls. Through a garden hose. It wouldn't talk to a Compaq Intel server with a Compaq FC SAN card - and they even had problems with a QLogic card. It even costs more that a comparable Compaq unit.

    Ditch the Hitachi SAN crap, please. Need I say more, Carly and Mike?

    Soko
  • When will we see OpenVMS on our iPaq's?

  • RED HERRING'S open letter to HP CEO Carly Fiorina (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IvyMike ( 178408 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @01:18AM (#3482720)

    Saw this letter [redherring.com] a few months ago, but it still seems relevant today. (Quote: "The merger is like two starving men agreeing to share a crust of bread.") Short but insightful, highly recommended.

  • Digital.com redirects you to Compaq.com which redirects you to HP.com!

    It's a fun ride! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

    Bill

  • The most important question, for me: Will HP keep Compaq's service and support for business personal systems and servers?

    Compaq's support is unequalled -- far better than HP's -- in my experience running the systems for many small businesses. The ability to speak to knowledgeable, motivated techs is the #1 reason I buy Compaq.

    Before you jump in with your support experiences, remember: It depends on your relationship with the vendor. Buy 5,000 systems, you'll get one kind of support. But my clients buy 10-50; Compaq is the only company that offers them competent support. Don't tell me about Dell -- my support from them is only untrained bureaucrats.

  • File systems? (Score:3, Funny)

    by alexburke ( 119254 ) <alex+slashdot@@@alexburke...ca> on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @01:41AM (#3482786)
    Decision: HP-UX will be the long-term UNIX for the new HP. Tru64 UNIX has some very advanced features -- including clustering and file systems -- and some of those will be integrated into HP-UX over time.

    Wow! Tru64 UNIX has support for file systems? What'll those Compaq engineers dream up next? Symbolic links?!
  • It seems that Jornada PocketPCs will be replaced by iPaqs but what about their handheld PC line? I would hate to see them phase out the 700 line... I've had a Jornada 720 for over a year and it is indispensible.

    Does anyone know what the story is here?

    • Re:Jornada 720 HPC (Score:3, Informative)

      by nowt ( 230214 )
      Especially with linux [handhelds.org] installed. I now have a mobile linux workstation with my 720. It simply rocks.

      Hacking cf-II into cf slot, I have a full gnu-gcc toolchain on udrive so can even piddle with kernel development for the jornada, on the jornada :-)

      As far as what will happen with the joranda hpc's, I'm trying to find out... but everything done so far is directed toward the $ so I'm not hopeful.

  • Nice and Concise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wanker ( 17907 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @03:06AM (#3482993)
    Is anyone else impressed that they even posted all this information in such a short and concise manner? How many merger/aquisitions have we seen where nobody admits to letting ANY products die for fear of losing the last two customers using it?

    At least they're pretty much laying it down for us rather than letting everyone find out when it's time to upgrade. (Oh, that? Nah, we don't make that any more...)
    • I wonder why Parent was marked Funny. The comment was pretty insightful.
    • Agreed. I think a lot of people confuse an end of production with an end of support. From their Merger FAQ [hp.com] page:

      "We are committed to ensuring that HP and Compaq products are supported according to the terms and conditions under which they were purchased."

      I truely believe they will follow through with that promise.

  • Tru64 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Supa Mentat ( 415750 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2002 @03:07AM (#3482994)
    Tru64 going is fine with me but it had some advanced features that Linux doesn't. As long as they're phasing it out they may as well GPL it and have some coders work on getting some of those features ported to Linux for inclusion into 2.5.xx, I mean HP actually looks like it wants to support Linux. Oh well, I doubt anything like that would ever happen.
  • I can't say that I am one of those big fighters for open source, though I must say coding your own software is easier if you have the code for certain parts of the OS (depending on what you do, different parts are relevant). In fact, I really hate it when I can't get to know what that OnPaint() really does when I want to inherit a GUI control.

    But onto my read message. Where does the source go when the OS are killed? I persume it will go into hiding, never to be found again, which really is a shame. There is one thing when a company tries to sell a product, but when they stop doing so, it's only fair to their customers that they release the source. It more than likely won't have any impact on the OpenSource movement, but to some it might be very very important indeed.
    • The source for those OSes still contains plenty of IP that the company is going to want to keep secret. By releasing the source they could provide the information a competitor needs to undercut sales (even if that competitor is Linux.) I think they'd prefer to hold onto the IP and implement it in whatever *nix they feel it is most appropritate.

  • What the !? (Score:2, Funny)

    by jtrandall ( 450863 )
    The Compaq iPAQ(TM) Pocket PC, re-named the HP iPAQ Pocket PC, will be our smart handheld platform


    HP iPAQ? but that doesn't even rhyme!

    How about HP hPAQ or
    HP iHP (ok thats a stretch)

    But then again this is advice going to people who came up with such clever monikers as 'deskjet' and 'Pavillion' maybe this'll grow on me...
  • Compaqard?
    Hewlit ComParKQD?
    Placard?
    • I prefer Unisys, The Next Generation . Reminds me of what's in store for the future HP. Anyone work for Unisys during the merger? I had a co-worker who shared with me a song the employees wrote to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" I can't remember anything but the chorus, which went something like this:
      Glory, glory, Halleluiah
      Glory, glory, Halleluiah
      Glory, glory, Halleluiah
      And the stock keeps going down!

  • Our commitment to the Itanium Processor Family remains very strong, and we continue to see Itanium as the future 64-bit microprocessor.

    Does this mean HP/UX is still going to get ported to IA-64? I thought defeat was admitted on that one when they closed the NJ-FPK facility.

  • my corporate investment group for voting yes on this merger. The company I work for had enough votes that if they had changed from yes to no, the merger would have failed. So, our yes vote is now going to cause us to throw away over $3M in work and planning on an imminent server and workstation rollout that now has to be canceled becuase of HP's planned elimination of Vectras and Netservers. Way to go guys. lets hear it for working together to cost the company money on both the investment side, when the merger tanks, and our own side in wasted R&D. :P

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