[Info-vax] Query: HP Educational Software Program - CSLG - 2012 - Australia.

[Mark Daniel]

On 2/03/12 10:29 AM, Erik wrote:
> My organisation has used the Campuswide Software Lincese Grant scheme
> and  HP Educational Software Program for many years - it means that we
> can get annual software licences for OpenVMS and Tru64 Unix for a
> nominal fee. We have received no information from HP about the renewal
> arrangements for 2012 and the licences run out at the end of March.
> All our attempts to contact HP about this have been fruitless - the
> Australian office handling this program appears to have vanished -
> emails to HP have gone unanswered - calls to HP get transferred to
> call centres via scratchy VOIP lines and we leave a message.
>
> Is anybody else in Australia using these licences? Have you been
> contacted by HP about renewal? Do you have contact details for someone
> in HP who is handling this?
>
> Any assistance or advice will be gratefully received,
> Erik Ahlefeldt.

We have used the same (or similar programme) for a number of years for 
our .au based R&D regression testbed.  I was contacted late last year by 
the HP representative who has been handling it annually for us (a 
competent and helpful individual I hasten to emphasise), who advised the 
HP staffer who administered the programme .au-internally had passed away 
and the programme had died with him/her.  I thought this strange at the 
least but having experienced Compaq and then HP in VMS and other 
contexts, seemingly indeterminate business model(s) didn't surprise me 
either!

As we still had stashed the original paper copies stretching back twenty 
years, the original LMF$LICENSE.LDBs from prior to the [C]SLG programme, 
and the corresponding DCL procedures that could recreate the .LDBs if we 
needed, it was nuisance value only in a practical sense (and yet another 
amusing anecdote about dealing with big business to go with my recent 
Oracle/Sun war stories).

Ok, I had 'till March to revert to the pre-[C]SLG environment.

March 1st I am contacted by that same HP representative informing us the 
programme is subject to ongoing discussion in the US, offering an 
interim set of PAKs, and were we still interested.  I have not had a 
chance to either revert the licences (my preferred option is to cut this 
annual nuisance-value exercise (and cost), or to contact him.

As competent assistance sometimes seems difficult to consistently find 
within these major IT businesses (we seem to have a much better 
experience with partners), if you drop me a private email on 
mark.daniel at dsto.defence.gov.au I will provide his contact details.  He 
may be able to point you in the right direction within HP.

Regards, Mark Daniel