Third-Party Software

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Ok, Bob, time to get back into the real world. First, consider how large (in terms of revenue) a company would be if it only had 20 users. A $3000 expenditure in such a company would probably be a BIG deal. Especially when you consider how many of those 20 users would be programmers (maybe 1?). You'd be asking the CFO (the most likely IT czar of such a shop) to spend $3000 on a tool for one person who cannot yet demonstrate how much more productive she's going to be using it. Right - like that's going to fly! I have to differ with your illustration of Systemworks, too. Again, if you were only buying Systemworks for the programmers (after all, your article was supposed to be talking about programmer tools), you'd have only spent $119 in my 1-programmer, 20-user shop. Much easier to justify. In our 400 user, 5 programmer shop, we use a PC software product that makes it easy to create scripts to run simple to extremely sophisticated Windows processes. The product costs $500 and we only need one copy, of which any of my 5 programmers can use (but which normally only 1 of us uses). We get great utility from the product and it's paid for itself many times over. Imagine what such a product would have cost if it were priced like typical AS/400 software on our iSeries 825 machine? When we originally purchased this product we were pretty sure it would do what we wanted - but we weren't completely sure. But, $500 was easier to risk than $3000. A $3000 expenditure in our shop would definitely get scrutinzed. Sometimes it's easier to slog through writing it yourself (and you tend to learn more) than it is to spend the time creating a cost justification. And, you fail to recognize the additional investment of time spent learning the tool. Yes, some are very single purpose and easy to learn. Others are much more flexible and exploiting that flexibility means you have to spend a fair amount of time learning it. Certainly, in the case of the $500 tool above, because it was really a language-like product, we spent a lot of time learning it. I wish programmers in general could adopt a personal tool-kit mentality and that programmer software products could be priced to support that, similar to car mechanics and their tools. In this vision, programmers would be able to purchase and add to their own personal arsenal of programming tools, which could be transported with THEM from job to job. It would certainly make it easier for people like me to risk purchasing and trying a tool without knowing that it would actually benefit me. Ok, you can return to fantasy world now. ==Kevin

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Free Software? Paid by IBM? Tell me more. In fact, why isn't IBM informing us about this service? 1 tool for iSeries shops could be the start of something big. It could convince many shops that tools are worth the cost. And then they might buy more.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
I am intrigued by the idea suggested by a previous reader. Why not design iSeries software tools so that it can be puchased and used by 1 registered user? And price it so that an individual could afford it. Many iSeries users purchase their own books just because we are frustrated by having to justify every purchase to a boss. iSeries tools could be the same idea. It would open up a whole market segment for iSeries tool vendors.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Bob said: "Most PC products have maintenance costs of 25% to 80% They call it upgrades." One must be assuming you're talking tongue-in-cheek here since upgrades and maintenance costs are very different things. Why? Maintenance costs are recurring costs that you pay on an annual basis to keep current. Upgrade costs are only paid periodically, if ever, if you decide to upgrade. For example, we pay about $12,000 per year to maintain Inovis' Trusted link, year in, year out. We've installed a newer release once in the last 4 years. However, my daughter is still running the Office 97 that came on her computer. She has yet to pay an upgrade cost for Office. Comparing maintenance and upgrade costs is silly. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Chuck Ackerman wrote: > Bob said: "Most PC products have maintenance costs of 25% to 80% They > call it upgrades." > > One must be assuming you're talking tongue-in-cheek here since > upgrades and maintenance costs are very different things. Why? > Maintenance costs are recurring costs that you pay on an annual basis > to keep current. Upgrade costs are only paid periodically, if ever, > if you decide to upgrade. > > For example, we pay about $12,000 per year to maintain Inovis' > Trusted link, year in, year out. We've installed a newer release > once in the last 4 years. However, my daughter is still running the > Office 97 that came on her computer. She has yet to pay an upgrade > cost for Office. > > Comparing maintenance and upgrade costs is silly. No it's not. You're just using a comparison that is conveniently slanted towards your point of view. You don't have to pay maintenance on your Trusted Link to continue to use it, correct? Just as your daughter has decided she didn't need anything newer, you could have made the same decision. You both would have had to pay the authors if you decided an update/upgrade was important, so the comparison does work. Bill

[bharder@nlrha.ab.ca]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
I think I know what you're trying to accomplish here. It's a good idea, and us technical folks need to keep trying. A key real-world problem is that you normally have technical people making recommendations to financial/management types. For instance, your idea that you can prorate the costs across your entire user base is flawed. Most tools in most shops I've seen, only have limited application. Therefore you are normally limited to prorating your costs across the portion of the user base that will actually benefit. This is often just one application, and often just one portion of that one application. Here's a real world example. Several years ago I identified that a particular tool would help my shop. We only needed it for a small subset of our application, but it would greatly assist with that subset. Otherwise it was a completely manual and highly inefficient job. My supervisor's were, "Show me the money!" So I did. I came up with a cost justification that showed the tool was incredibly cost efficient compared to the equivalent manual alternative. Unfortunately, there was also an alternative to do nothing, or to do a slap-dash manual job of things. So the tool never got purchased. Sure you say, it's just a matter of priorities. If that were true, why does there seem to be a consistent pattern at work? The priorities of the technical staff ought to get some attention at least some of the time, right? Otherwise, it's not really an issue of organizational priorities at all. The organization is not just a handful of supervisory people. So we keep trying, but sometimes you have to realize that the situation just isn't amenable to input.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Bill, You are right, both upgrade and maintenance costs are optional. But just try upgrading an AS/400 software package, such as Trusted Link, WITHOUT being on maintenance. It's next to impossible unless you pay all back maintenance fees. Also the article compared PCs to an iSeries. That's simply silly also. Buying the iSeries doesn't eliminate the PCs and it also doesn't eliminate most PC utility software. chuck Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer. "Bill" wrote in message news:8598FD411B3A9236F97D9C11C28B587B@in.WebX.Wawy ahGHajS... > Chuck Ackerman wrote: >> Bob said: "Most PC products have maintenance costs of 25% to 80% They >> call it upgrades." >> >> One must be assuming you're talking tongue-in-cheek here since >> upgrades and maintenance costs are very different things. Why? >> Maintenance costs are recurring costs that you pay on an annual basis >> to keep current. Upgrade costs are only paid periodically, if ever, >> if you decide to upgrade. >> >> For example, we pay about $12,000 per year to maintain Inovis' >> Trusted link, year in, year out. We've installed a newer release >> once in the last 4 years. However, my daughter is still running the >> Office 97 that came on her computer. She has yet to pay an upgrade >> cost for Office. >> >> Comparing maintenance and upgrade costs is silly. > > No it's not. You're just using a comparison that is conveniently slanted > towards your point of view. You don't have to pay maintenance on your > Trusted Link to continue to use it, correct? Just as your daughter has > decided she didn't need anything newer, you could have made the same > decision. You both would have had to pay the authors if you decided an > update/upgrade was important, so the comparison does work. > > Bill > >

[thull@fmic.com]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
At the first shop I worked at we had an abundance of tools (Hawkeye, SEQUEL, DBU, etc…). I was new to the AS/400 and I learned how to use the 3rd party “tools”. When I went to my second company they didn’t have any “tools”. I had lost my crutch and felt like I started all over again. I became a contractor after that. I walked into many different shops with an array of different “tools”. I learned to depend on base OS/400. I learned the base system OPNQRYF, SQL, QRY, etc… I have learned many tips from TAATOOLS. I had my own SRC de-bug (from CISC), De-bug from journal templates, Pgm-file where used, automated SPLF routing to multiple systems, DRDA, and other utilities. Yes I had a learning curve to do these, but I have been able to use that knowledge and understanding of the system in our everyday life. That’s not to say that I learned what could be done, by seeing the functionality of the 3rd party’s software. I have also been able to carry my “tools” library and source to each company I go to. The company I currently work for, has IT report to an accountant, try to sell these AS/400 utilities to him. Another issue I face with our current software package, is they are using proprietary companies/utilities. They have partnered with companies like Media View, DAP, Designer Builder, etc… They seem to ignore IBM’s direction (Web facing/ WebSphere, and yes CGI-DEV2) which creates the problem of hiring a “typical” programmer off the street. I will also need training in these products, which pulls me farther away from “base” system knowledge. I don’t want to tie my career to a vendor/application.

[P.Harkins]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Bob, As a vendor of an iSeries programmer productivity tool, I thank you for your poll and your article on Third-Party Software, and I agree almost completely with your conclusions (and frustration). I have spent four decades observing hundreds (really thousands) of IBM mid-range programmers flounder along producing half or less what they should be producing because they are not using available Third-Party productivity tools effectively. Programmers will use productivity tools like a pen, and paper, a calculator, and an occasional programming book without considering how much more effective and valuable they are by using them, while simply ignoring incredibly valuable and useful software productivity tools as if they diminished the perceived skills needed by a programmer. I also have been a contract programmer or consultant programmer at dozens of companies, both large and small. The shops that invested in critical programmer software productivity tools always seemed to get far more out of their in-house programmers and out of me and to develop superior and higher quality applications. Out-sourcing programming work makes it imperative that in-house programmers who plan to survive be as good as they can be. That means utilizing all of their capability aided by powerful productivity tools that their competitors routinely use.

[Guest.Visitor]

** This thread discusses the article: Third-Party Software **
Bob Cozzi wrote: > I know AS/400 software companies that charge you maintenance, > optionally. But if you install their software in 1997 and then want > the latest version, they charge you for the missed years of > upgrades--just like Illinois does for years you don't buy license > plat stickers. > > But, if you don't pay for maintenance for say 5 years, you end up > paying 5 years worth of maintence when you want/need the upgrade. > Sometime they make you buy a new version. > A PC product you typically only get upgrades at upgrade prices if you > have "at least" a certain version. MS Office is an strange example > since it really hasn't change since Office 97. Actually, for large companies that have volume licenses with Microsoft, it changed a while ago. They took on the model very similar to AS/400 software licensing where you pay so much for each seat and you are eligible to get any and all upgrades to the products you've licensed for the year. No longer did companies have to worry about different versions on different PCs or trying to budget for the year, it's all set ahead of time. The downside is that very few people need to continually update the software they use, but if they aren't on the new licensing terms, they'll be buying the software if they need to upgrade. Bill