At the HP Technology Forum in Houston, the group spearheading the effort, OpenMPE Inc. in Hagerstown, Md., met and reviewed its plan for delivering software engineering services for MPE. It will build and test operating system updates to support things such as new peripherals and networking changes. The organization also estimates that it would need to charge users an annual fee for these services ranging from US$5,000 to $37,500, depending on the number of supported systems.

But OpenMPE's fate remains in HP's hands. If HP decides not to provide source-code access, the user group effort will die. But continued delays could have the same effect, according to Birket Foster, chairman of OpenMPE. Foster met with some of the people involved in that effort at the HP Technology Forum.

The OpenMPE group needs a decision from HP to get customer financial support, assemble engineering expertise and build support processes -- something that will take time, said Foster. He said he is hoping for a decision from HP as soon as possible.

"If HP wants a seamless transfer, they can make it really easy - they can fund the project and make sure the right engineers are there to help us get ramped," said Foster.

HP has said it will support the e3000 through the end of 2008 after earlier announcing plans to end support this year.