HewlettPackard Co is so determined to demonstrate the extent to which it has been able to improve priceperformance by its migration to reduced instruction set Precision Architecture that it is making DEC VAX and PDP users in the UK an offer it hopes many will feel unable to refuse: buy one of our HP9000 Series 800 Unix machines and we will give you a generous tradein price on your old DEC hardware. The offer will run for six months from May 1, and suggests that a firm should be able to move from a 1 MIPS VAX11/780 to a 14 MIPS 9000/835 for a net capital cost of just UKP50,000 and save UKP18,000 a year on maintenance to boot. It has identified the estimated 10,000 PDP11s and 5,000 VAX11s and MicroVAXes in the UK as prime targets, and to reassure users that they have made the right choice, will offer 90day side by side operation of new and old systems, and a training and consultancy package. The idea is a UK initiative but if it is successful will no doubt be picked up by the company’s subsidiaries in other countries. And no, Hewlett doesn’t have a major landfill project earmarked for deep sixing the DEC iron the machines will go to a used computer broker, not to a breaker.
