In 1988, Hewlett-Packard Ltd offered to take old DEC iron in part-exchange for its own new Unix systems (CI No 918) under a six-month programme that ran through the summer. That promotion did well enough that the UK company is trying it again, this time going after Sun Microsystems’ Motorola-based Sun-3 base. It is offering up to $19,000 for a Sun-3 where the user buys an HP9000 Model 345 or 375, or a DN2500, 3500 or 4500 from the Apollo line. All those machines are Motorola-based and Hewlett believes that many Sun users do not want to move to the Sparc. What will Hewlett do with all the old Sun-3s it gets back? Last time around it sold traded in machines to used computer brokers.
