Software availability on HP-UX

[Wim Rombauts]

How does it come that, when you look at system recquirements for 3rd party software, that HP-UX is often the first missing OS in their list ?
If UNIX is supported, multiple times it's only Solaris and AIX (in that order).
Is HP-UX such a small OS that software vendors don't bother too much to port their application to HP-UX ?
Doesn't HP care too much about software availablity while IBM and Sun do every effort to get applications ported to their platform ? (While I think HP can use every software there is to proove software availability on Itanium).
Or is this the fight between the unix-vendors where IBM and Sun urge (=sponsor) the software vendors not to port their application to HP-UX ?

I am just wondering if some of you have the same expirience, and maybe know a little more of the background.

[Steven E. Protter · Accepted solution]

Shalom,

HP-UX certainly does not have as many installations as Linux or Windows.

However many vendors support it.

HP said there are 11,000 ISV applications that support Itanium when they visited us for a meeting a few months ago.

I'm sure HP cares about software availability.

I can't say I share your experience. Though I have found from time to time vendors were slow to support HP-UX, the software the systems I support need has generally been available.

SEP

[VK2COT]

Hello,

I will try to comment without prejudice.
I test and use most suitable solutions,
so I always discard what vendors say
about themselves :)

It is like resumes - we all look great in them. I have never seen a CV that does not
say best things about a person. That

I have been working in Unix, security and
networking for the last 23 years. More
than 20 flavours of Unix and Linux...

I worked and still do with all
major vendors (except Microsoft).

Yes, AIX and especially SunOS were less
conservative and ported new software
quicker than HP-UX in the past.

Things are changing and HP-UX v3 is one
example of many improvements.

I know that HP is very serious about
future and lot of effort is invested in
making its operating system better.

Note that HP has an unusual situation where
they still support and develop
Tru64, HP-UX and OpenVMS (three very
different operating systems).

Sites like HP-UX Porting and Archiving Centre
(http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/) now offer
more than 2,000 packages.

HP has also formed alliances with
many vendors and set dedicated teams to
help with porting many applications.

I believe the future is good.

Unix and Linux vendors should stop
attacking each other and life could be
much better for them :)

Cheers,

VK2COT

[Bill Hassell]

HP-UX does indeed have thousands of supported applications. One of the most overlooked methods to get things supported is customer queries. If these are serious applications (not $39 utilities), you contact the marketing department and ask why HP-UX is not supported. If the answer is "no plans to support HP-UX) you call the president or vice-president of the company and ask again. Software vendors (unfortunately) port to platforms that they already have in house (along with knowledgeable developers) and only the potential of new business will spur them into porting to HP-UX.

Since virtually all major database and application packages are already supported, you are probably looking at a specialized product. Now the call to marketing is even more important. You need to get above the "no plans to support" people and talk to the visionaries in the company. If you get the same answer, you don't want the package. There are numerous (sad) stories on these forums about sysadmins that must use totally unsupported OS versions because their critical application provider went out of business, quite often due to lack of aggressive marketing and development plans.

[Wim Rombauts]

Hello Bill,
Let me be a little more specific : I have had more issues in the past, but my latest issue was with Adobe software, a â ¬100.000 product. It didn't sound me like some specialized product.
I talked (or tried to talk) to adobe, got no further than sales and the account manager, with the "No plans" response.
I talked well in advance (and later screemed - politely) at HP (Belgium) to do something about this and maybe help Adobe to port to HP-UX, but the answer sounded like "Adobe has no plans, so there is nothing we can do, we are powerless").
Maybe I didn't get to the right people, maybe our company is not big enough to get that high, or maybe I can get some good tips on this forum for a next occurance ... ?