Real Time View

Travels to Southern California with plenty of time to talk about NonStop made us more aware of just how big a marketing task HPE faces with NonStop and how, just perhaps, we all need to contribute to make the presence of NonStop more widely known! The years have been kind to Margo and me and as much as we remind ourselves that yes, we are aging there’s that other side that says, “Na; you’re still young!” Leaving the cold and snow well and truly behind us we drove from Boulder, Colorado, to sunny Malibu, California. And yes, we had lunches at Dukes and Ocean Prime, drinks at Nobu, coffees at Starbucks and dinners at Brophy Brothers in Ventura and Mastro’s new digs surfside at Malibu. Business had taken us to Century City the first day in California but under these bright blue skies, Margo celebrated her birthday with good friends, the Kennys, whom we first met in Simi Valley many years ago. Thoughts of aging are never far from our minds of late and it is no surprise to read tha...

NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2016 wrapped up a few days ago but with the start of a new week, it’s still very fresh in our minds. Did it meet all your expectations? Does the future of NonStop look bright for you? There are still many more questions but at least now we have so many more answers than ever before … The NonStop Technical Boot Camp 2016 wrapped up last week and it left all attendees with much to think about. Not the least because attendance was, once again, up from the same event last year – more than 450 enthusiastic members from the NonStop community. And yes, there were plenty of NonStop users in the audience, which is a very healthy sign for all involved in organizing the event. My congratulations go out to every individual who in any way contributed to making sure the event went off without a hitch. More importantly, for those pondering the future of NonStop well, what can we say - the future now looks bright! It was an easy drive for Margo and me this year – n...

Back from HPE Discover 2016 and with opportunities to converse with my clients, the news about NonStop is good. All involved in the NonStop community see the development of NonStop the system, NonStop the software and NonStop the services as positive and there’s excitement and anticipation evident everywhere I turn … HPE Discover 2016 continues to occupy my thoughts even as I am now deeply involved in a number of projects arising from conversations with my clients. Las Vegas may not be to everyone’s liking but when it comes to the biggest of HPE marketing events, HPE Discover 2016 does throw a lot at you in a very short period of time. For me it has always been about the sidebar conversations, the opportunity for a brief exchange with an executive and the chance, and often quite unexpected, meeting over cocktails. This year, there was a reception for the NonStop community hosted by America’s sales head, Jeff Skinner, and that proved to be the place to be Tuesday evening. The quest...

A chance forced detour out on the highway reminded me of just how important good service is - for the NonStop community there are many options when it comes to service and I suspect there will be even greater demand for services in the future. Think for a moment about Hybrids and NonStop as Software!   Driving the many miles we do, attending one conference or another, we probably spend more time in car service bays than most. Throw into the mix the need to accommodate extreme temperature changes that living next to the continental divide creates, and the expenses climb steadily through any given year. Seeking the assistance of service managers isn’t restricted to where we live either, as we have been forced, on occasion, to pull into garages all across the western states of America. Service, particularly when it comes to cars, is something Margo and I know a lot about. As much as it really hurts to own up to such familiarity with car service centers across the country, it’s ou...

How do the words of a Jimmy Buffett song, a car magazine’s report of the Viper and the message from Martin Fink, EVP and CTO, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, “Fix it, or Exit” have in common? Only at the NonStop Technical Boot Camp would you make such a connection …  Sometimes you just know that, at a time when you least expect it, your travels take a detour. Now, having said that, and with winter beginning to make its presence felt, getting hit with an icy, wintery blast shouldn’t have come as a surprise. But hit us rather hard, it did! In the opening stanzas of the song, Jamaica Mistaica, by Jimmy Buffett there’s a couple of lines that I find appropriate at this time of year: But every now and then, the dragons come to call Just when you least expect it you'll be dogin' cannon balls Having successfully traversed the Sierras and made the passage through Nevada and Utah to pull up the mountains and into Wyoming, well sure enough, we were dodging snowballs as Inters...

The themes of meetings and events, as well as the commentaries and posts that followed, share a common theme – transactions and yes, our willingness to believe in transactions only when we have seen the contributions they make for us; HP NonStop systems are changing perceptions and remains at the forefront of processing the transactions that keep society functioning … All around us here, in Boulder, Colorado, the harvesting of the wheat crop has begun and there’s no missing the sightings of the harvesters going about their business – the numerous clouds of dust produced by the headers is unmistakable. While the wheat flows into waiting trucks the chaff flies freely in the air and it may be very modern looking, but it’s still rooted in traditions that are millennia old. The harvests now under way are of the winter varieties and if the weather holds, there will be an additional plantings shortly, although not being a farmer I’m not sure how all of that happens but I am only too ha...

About to hit the road, literally, for the drive to Las Vegas for this year’s HP Discover event. Will this be the last year for the big tent event covering all of HP and will we see a new show just for HPE in 2016? For anyone east of the Rockies, May has been a month of hard rains a’fallin! To add one more sentiment from popular music, well there's floodin' down in Texas and just about everywhere else across America’s heartland, for that matter. Before saying anything further I need to pass on my families condolences  to all those who suffered losses in Texas - the situation in that state went from bad to worse as I was writing this post. It's a tragic situation for many of its folk.  It was only part way through the month when the local weatherman reported that we had just two days of sunshine – a first for the Colorado front ranges – as rain kept falling. Everywhere, that is, except for California where the rains are needed most – and the negative impact on Ca...

With the introduction of brand new NonStop systems – the NonStop X family – distance is being put between the modern NonStop systems of today and any lingering thoughts CIOs may still have about former legacy systems from HP and Compaq. With the passage of time almost every important historical figure begins to muse on the legacy they will leave behind. In America, this involves a lot of discussion about philanthropy, even as it touches on the ramifications of endowing considerable fortunes on their heirs. As for Presidents, the talk is about future presidential libraries and having spent time in the Ronald Reagan library I can see why the creation of presidential library can cost a princely sum. With much work ahead of him still, I was curious to learn that President Obama is already talking about his own presidential library and the likely impact of his own legacy on the citizens of the U.S. as well as the city of Chicago. A colleague of mine from the time when I was on th...