Three Users Groups for HP Customers Merge

Published: May 29, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

While the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq was finished nearly seven years ago and Compaq ate Tandem and then Digital more than a decade ago, the user groups that served these four distinct customer sets in many cases persisted. In some cases, like the 100,000-strong Interex group, shut down in August 2005 for financial reasons and the slack has been picked up by Encompass, another user group that has tighter ties with HP. And now, the three remaining HP user groups are merging.

Specifically, Encompass, short for the Enterprise Computing Association and spawned out of the DECUS user group for Digital Equipment users that was founded in 1961, and ITUG, formerly the International Tandem User Group and still dedicated to the NonStop platform, and HP-Interex EMEA, the European arm of the HP Interex user group that did not go under in 2005, have agreed to pool their resources and their members to create a single user group organization to be named Connect. The combined organization has over 50,000 user members, including 3,500 members from ITUG, 35,000 from HP-Interex EMEA, and nearly 12,000 in Encompass. All three organizations are independent from HP--or, to be more precise, are as independent as they can be considering that they need the support of HP to put on user group meetings, expos, and other events, as do all user groups and the vendors who make the products who give their organization a purpose.

The memberships of the three user groups took votes in April to merge, and unveiled their new organization's name this month. They also created a combined board of directors that draws from HP as well as from the three groups to establish and govern the new Connect user group. Nina Buik, the former president of Encompass, is the president of the Connect board of directors, and Margo Holen will serve as vice president. Glen Kuykendall was elected secretary/treasurer, and Scott Healy, the former ITUG president, will serve as immediate past president. Steve Davidek, Bill Johnson, Jay McLaughlin, Henk Pomper, Joe Ramos, Michael Rossbach, Gerhard Wedenig and Brad Harwell (director of marketing at HP's Technology Solutions Group for the Americas region) are newly elected board members for Connect. The merged user group will get its formal unveiling at the 2008 HP Technology Forum and Expo, which is being hosted by HP in Las Vegas between June 16 and 19.

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