IBM vs. Microsoft in the Midrange
** This thread discusses the article: IBM vs. Microsoft in the Midrange **
The i5 is just the next name in the succession, undoubtedly chosen for its marketing appeal rather than any huge leap in technology. It might as well be called a System/36 or a System/38 for those who will use it to run their legacy applications originally targeted to those systems. The i5 may be the open, non-proprietary system described in the article, but only, it seems to me, if you use it to run Linux. I doubt there's a huge Linux market for the i5. Why run such expensive (by comparison) hardware to host Linux when you could run inexpensive Intel based systems from Dell and other low cost manufacturers? The only reason to run an i5 is to host legacy RPG and COBOL applications that started life on long dead platforms. To that end, there is no better choice, and there are usability and performance advantages in the new line. But renaming the product line adds no benefit for the legacy applications. The main point of the article is valid. There is no need to sell against Microsoft---at least not until Microsoft can do a credible job of running RPG code in 5250 emulation.
** This thread discusses the article: IBM vs. Microsoft in the Midrange **
The i5 is just the next name in the succession, undoubtedly chosen for its marketing appeal rather than any huge leap in technology. It might as well be called a System/36 or a System/38 for those who will use it to run their legacy applications originally targeted to those systems. The i5 may be the open, non-proprietary system described in the article, but only, it seems to me, if you use it to run Linux. I doubt there's a huge Linux market for the i5. Why run such expensive (by comparison) hardware to host Linux when you could run inexpensive Intel based systems from Dell and other low cost manufacturers? The only reason to run an i5 is to host legacy RPG and COBOL applications that started life on long dead platforms. To that end, there is no better choice, and there are usability and performance advantages in the new line. But renaming the product line adds no benefit for the legacy applications. The main point of the article is valid. There is no need to sell against Microsoft---at least not until Microsoft can do a credible job of running RPG code in 5250 emulation.
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