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To: Jdaasoc who wrote (29977)	9/20/1999 12:51:00 PM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

JD, <<Continuing HP's commitment to PC stability, the new HP Vectra VL600 corporate PC provides software image stability throughout its nine- to 12-month product lifecycle -- even with processor or memory upgrades.>> This is the strange statement for a computer company to make. As I read it, it says "Don't buy to many of these units as configured today; I'll be producing much faster and with higher RAM capacity within the year." It's a pre-warning to MIS managers to kick the tires on these models and plan your future purchases on next version of these types of systems. This could be a plus It could be a minus short term. Don't worry about this. I'll discuss it further when I get back to my office shortly, but there's nothing scary here. Dave

To: Jdaasoc who wrote (29977)	9/20/1999 3:49:00 PM
From: Dave B	Respond to of 93625

Jd, <<Continuing HP's commitment to PC stability, the new HP Vectra VL600 corporate PC provides software image stability throughout its nine- to 12-month product lifecycle -- even with processor or memory upgrades.>> One of the key things corporations want in the PCs/laptops is a stable software image. When they qualify a new system, they want to know that the software they've qualified is not going to change for a while. If it does change, then they have to go through another (expensive) qualification cycle to test the new software. Rolling the processor does not change the software (except in the rare cases, for example, where the new Geyserville technology may add some capabilities that the laptop folks can support, in which case you'd add software to the image). HP can roll the processor to match Intel's new speeds without changing the image. Also, they would have accounted for all of the accessories in the basic image. Ditto for memory. Things that do change the image are typically lower-level hardware changes, like video chipsets in laptops. We're in the processing of rolling the image right now on the laptops I'm working on for exactly this reason. These changes require new drivers, possibly BIOS changes, et cetera. In our case, we'll continue to offer the existing platforms, although they may get taken off the literature, for 3-6 months let corporations continue to buy the systems they've qualified already while giving them time to qualify the new image. So what HP is saying is that the software that goes on the harddrive will stay the same for 9-12 months, but that the processor upgrades and memory upgrades will match Intel's offerings and the market's needs. Corporations absolutely want to hear this statement. Dave