Association Newsletter - March 28, 2002 edition IN THIS EDITION: 1. Visit Our New Web Site! 2. Membership Survey 3. HP-Compaq Merger 4. Technical Seminar 5. Self Maintainers SIG 6. On-line Advocacy 7. OpenVMS Hobbyist License 8. Programmer War Stories 9. EARLUG (Edmonton and Area Local Users Group) 10. Canadian Tandem Users Group (CTUG) 11. ITUG/DECUS 2002 Joint European Conference 12. ITUG Summit 2002 13. CETS 2002 1. VISIT OUR NEW WEB SITE! Visit our new web site at www.canacu.org. It has been redesigned and expanded to serve you better. And, we'll be rolling out additional content and services over the next few months. Keep checking back! 2. MEMBERSHIP SURVEY We were surprised and delighted by the response to our membership survey. Thank you to everyone who responded. Look at the summary of the results at www.canacu.org/surveyresults. 3. HP-COMPAQ MERGER "We (the Compaq enterprise computing customer base) will be very happy with what we hear as the post-merger roadmaps are laid-out. Every commitment Compaq has made in the past year (presumably including those made last fall with regard to their plans for Alpha and Itanium) will be fully supported and endorsed by the newly merged corporation." That is the gist of a March 21st conversation between three senior CCUG officials and two senior Compaq executives. The Confederation of Compaq User Groups (CCUG) is a global organization to which formerly DECUS chapters from around the world belong. The two senior Compaq executives were Howard Elias, Senior VP and GM, Business Critical Solutions Group and Rich Marcello, VP and GM, High Performance Systems Division. The information is in the context of a meeting conversation as understood and reported by Joe Pollizzi of CCUG. Although we believe it is accurate, it is not a published announcement from Compaq or HP. At long last, the merger soap opera is over. Well, sort of. On March 19, HP stockholders voted YES by a very slim margin. On March 20, Compaq stockholders voted overwhelmingly YES. But, at this point, proxy votes haven't been counted; a process that will take weeks. So it will be a while yet before we can say for certain that HP and Compaq are going to merge into an IT colossus second only to IBM in size. At the moment, it looks likely. Stay tuned. And, visit http://www.encompassus.org/whatsnew/hpmerge.html to read industry analyst and Encompass (aka DECUS US) board member Terry Shannon's opinion on the merger. 4. TECHNICAL SEMINAR Planning for Fall 2002 -- One-day Technical Seminar Event We have started discussions with Compaq Canada and Compaq Corporation regarding hosting a technical seminar series that will target the High Performance Systems environment. Since this event will be for the benefit of our user group members, we invite you to participate in the early stages of our event planning process. We will be introducing a brief questionnaire to collect your feedback to help us determine the kind of event you would like to see. We will be making the questionnaire available in the events section of the Association web site at http://www.canacu.org. Please stay tuned, the questionnaire will be available sometime in April! 5. SELF MAINTAINERS SIG There has been interest in a new SIG for Compaq Self Maintainers. As you may know, a self maintainer is a firm that does not have a direct service level agreement with Compaq and is therefore responsible for supporting their own hardware and software. The purpose for this new SIG would be for members to exchange information regarding issues pertaining to those self maintainers that specifically deal with internal customers. This is an exciting opportunity to exchange ideas, concerns and questions for those members that do not have specific relationship with Compaq. In addition, CanACU can serve as a conduit to Compaq, providing a way for self maintainers to more effectively service their users. If you are a Compaq Self Maintainer, and are interested in participating in this SIG, please let us know at 'inquire@canacu.org'. 6. ON-LINE ADVOCACY Have issues for Compaq? Share your thoughts! Reach Compaq through the "Local Voices...Global Reach" Online Advocacy Program. Your opinions count, so visit http://www.compaqworkinggroup.org today to submit issues or participate in the latest Insta-poll question. 7. OPENVMS HOBBYIST LICENSE You can order the OpenVMS Hobbyist License through your membership in the Association. Here are the instructions: - The complete transaction takes place on the OpenVMS site - Go to http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist - Go to the link "License Register". This will take you to a license registration page where you will be required to complete a form - Enter your Association membership number on the ordering form - If you do not know your membership number, or you are not a member of the Association, send an e-mail message to inquire@canacu.org. The license is free of charge. There is a charge of $30.00 USF if you want to receive the software on CD media. 8. PROGRAMMER WAR STORIES Christopher Duncan, author of "The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World" (Apress), is compiling a book of war stories from those of you who have been out there dealing with all the insanity that Corporate America has to offer. None of his books are tied to a particular programming language, operating system or platform, so it doesn't matter what kind of coding you do. He'll paraphrase the stories, and of course he won't use any real names (personal or company). He'll be happy to include your name in the Acknowledgements, but of course will omit it if you prefer your story to be anonymous. If you've got a good war story about programming in Corporate America, he'd love to hear it. Go to www.ShowProgramming.com/TheCareerProgrammer.asp and look for the link on War Stories. 9. EARLUG (Edmonton and Area Local Users Group) EARLUG has their regular meetings on the third Wednesday of the month at The Druid at 5 p.m. - 116 St. & Jasper Ave. For further information, contact Dave Richardson (DRichardson@interbaun.com) at (780)420-9084. EARLUG has been meeting continuously for more than 20 years. 10. CANADIAN TANDEM USERS GROUP (CTUG) As a charter member of the Canadian Association of Compaq Users, the Tandem(Compaq NSK) Security Special Interest Group, through the Canadian Tandem Users Group (CTUG) has been informed of a meeting. The 2002 CTUG Conference will be held on Thursday, April 4th at the St. Andrew's Club & Conference Centre 150 King Street West, 27th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 1J9 Tel: (416) 366-4228, Fax: (416) 366-9347. The keynote speaker is Terry Shannon, publisher of Shannon Knows Compaq and the cost is $125 CDN. For more information, go to http://www.interlog.com/~ctug/. 11. ITUG/DECUS 2002 JOINT EUROPEAN CONFERENCE The pre-conference seminars are on May 11-12 2002. The conference & exhibition are on May 13-15. The event is being held in Lyon, France. And, if you register before April 15 at http://www.jointconference.org/index.cfm, you can save 100 euros. 12. ITUG SUMMIT 2002 The conference is on October 27-31 2002. The exhibition is on October 28-30, 2002. The event is being held in San Jose, California. For more information or to register go to http://www.itug.org. 13. CETS 2002 The Compaq Enterprise Technical Symposium 2002 (CETS 2002) will take place October 6-11, 2002 at the Cervantes Convention Center in St. Louis, Missouri. For more information or to register go to http://www.cets2002.com/. ==================================================================== WE LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU! We want you to tell us what you think of this newsletter. Your feedback and suggestions are most welcome. Please send your comments and articles to inquire@canacu.org. WE ARE LOOKING FOR A FEW, GOOD REPORTERS Here's your chance to report the news instead of just reading it! We are looking for users from each of Compaq's product lines to keep their ear to the ground and bring us their 'front line' reports. If you want to be a reporter on the Association's Newsletter staff, send an e-mail to the attention of Alan Clifford at inquire@canacu.org. GETTING YOUR OWN NEWSLETTER If you're reading a copy someone has forwarded to you, now is your chance to get your own copy. 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