IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Interestingly, I've never had the feedback that MS is an "Open Systems". It was/is well understood that it is proprietary. It's market dominance makes it the defacto solution - but no more than the ride IBM had right through to the s/36 boxes in most markets. I was there. We sold some crumby performing boxes with very crumby programs to a lot of people. I did love that little O/S though. I do agree my "superior" tag was a throwoff. I'm a coder and look to be right in the mainstream of the current flow on thinking. The reference was to code production as it is dear to my heart. Ultimately it is dear to the survival of the Series I. I want the best way to generate code in the shortest amount of time. There was another post on the quality of the database structure in SQL Server environments. With no disrespect to the author, this is not a SQL Server problem. The crap code and database structures I used to support on the s/36 and AS/400 are nothing to brag about. The "Superior" product are definitely MS's product development tools. I'm sorry but the infinite number of Java Frameworks out there is just clutter. Distracting at best. The IDEs - whilst competent - are no where near VS for productivity. I actually have wished for SEU screens instead of some of the Java IDEs I worked on. Back on topic, build a better development tool for your proprietary box and you'll get the bees in. JAVA is open to any box (including windows) so it won't encourage the bees to the Series I like VS (.NET languages) will to MS platforms. This is not to say there wouldn't be a problem attracting ISVs to the platform given it's small market footprint versus, say, windows. Historically, I wrote one of the first GUI apps to be released targettng a particular vertical in Aussie hospitals. It was developed on OS2 but was a Win31 app (as the market demanded). At the time a huge chunk of the Australasian hospitals had s/36s and AS/400s. Now there are none. Their replacement is THE "5 seat solution" you referred to. There is 1 vendor left peddling a Unix solution with Informix/Oracle database backend and they are struggling with the "legacy" tag even though their current release is Web based. The rest are Windows served solutions with 1 of the smaller ones having the Cache database rather than a SQL Server backend I also work in the Tourism industry. Every Hotel had a s/36 or AS/400 in the early 90s. There used to be 30+ boxes in my city alone. Now there is one left in this industry that I know of as I am it's principle support - there is no other experience in the city for the box. All the IBMs have been replaced by the "5 seat solution". As for ERP, you may still have a small vertical remaining. But don't kid yourself that it is safe. You'll need to watch SAP (Windows/Linux) and software vendors for the commodity Linux boxes. Ron

[T.Grove]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

My 2 cents worth for Websphere: MS gives away a development environment so that people can learn it easily, and it runs on their PC. IBM makes you purchase an AS400 in order to get Websphere Development Client. I have wanted to learn Websphere for the past 5 years, but had no way of doing so, as an independant contractor, or as an employee. I now have a full-time job, but Websphere is not even spoken about here for development of green screen applications OR web based ones. I could steal the Websphere disks here from my company and load them on my PC at home to try to learn it, but would have no AS400 to connect to. IBM should produce a Websphere Learning edition that is self-contained and runs on a PC, and GIVE IT AWAY. I AM learning MS VB/C# on my own, as I see the writing on the wall: My days as an AS400 programmer ar numbered. I was unemployed for nearly 2 years because I could not find an AS400 job within a 75 mile radius of where I live, and could not move. However there were literally hundreds of VB/C# jobs posted on the job boards within that radius. So, do I learn Websphere for the AS400, or VB/C# for the Wintel platform? My answer is to learn VB/C#, as Websphere will die the same death as the AS400. IBM just is not marketing the machine enough, not making their application development platform of choice available for people to learn it easily, and the AS400 is considered just plain "Legacy" by the people with the purse strings. Please don't get me wrong. I love the AS400, and I've been developing RPG applications for close to 20 years. It's the best box out there for reliability, stability and businesses to run on. But the OS/2 treatment that IBM is giving its marketing (or lack thereof) really makes me think that IBM just wishes that the machine would die so that they could forget it and move on to Linux/Unix/AIX. I'm learning VB/C# so that I will be able to work when I lose my job, when the AS400 finally gets its plug pulled for being a legacy box that has outlived its time.

[R.Daugherty]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Hi boomer, I certainly agree with you and Timothy. What I was saying was that TMP was trying to salvage a typical IBM marketing plan that confirms yet again what I've been saying: IBM has niched the iseries~AS/400 as something to force Websphere on 20 people or so. Anything related to iseries is secondary to trying to force sales of Websphere. That's what they've staked their business on, that's all they care about. Sure, they'd like to sell iseries, but they run ads of a little box spinning around on a merry go round with some deliriously happy small business tech guy spinning around with it, "Geeeee this is easy!!!" That's the system i~i5~iseries~AS/400 that IBM has carved out to not intrude on their real computers, the AIX and Z/OS boxes. So, no, there's no hope in marketing orders to sell "What goes up, must come down, spinning wheel, going round and round" for 20 people. Here's the reason. It's not that simple. It's an OS that runs multi-billion dollar companies. We are career people on it learning new things every day. I for example don't have time to learn Linux enough to run a business with it, and I've installed it a couple of times. Sure you can pick up a few things a little at a time, but you need to be a pro to run a business with it. The same thing is true for Unix and OS/400. For that matter, you're in deep if you put your company's Windows servers out there exposed to the internet unless you're a pro, and often even that's not enough. But Windows admins are a dime a dozen, everybody and their mother has a cert. A small business with 20 people isn't going to be able to justify ramping up on staffing for OS/400. But here's where we get to the real disconnect. IBM isn't even trying to sell i5/OS~OS/400 to 20 people. They are selling system i to 20 people, which to them is like we don't care, operating systems, shmoperating systems, who cares, here buy this computer that makes it all easy, one backup command. That's how they are trying to sell the iseries. They've never taken TMP's advice before, they wouldn't be in this boat if they had, but if they ever get desperate enough to change their ways before they abandon ship, they should go with user pricing along the lines of his suggestion. Scaled as high as the iseries goes, with all hardware on board maxed out, enough memory to run Websphere, and a solid IBM integrated infrastructure built in for those seats, with only advanced features like J2EE at extra cost. Websphere with Notes Domino and a native iseries Eclipse desktop interface with their new Rich Client Markup Language for us to program to for starters. Think of the FBI Case File system that's a multi-hundred million dollar disaster. Every iseries should come out of the box ready to program and run that kind of software. That's what's every business wants, and a standard infrastructure with IBM middleware for a seat or two of every product would provide similar but more capabilities that enabled the success we had developing and selling software systems for the AS/400. It should be a win win for everyone. We would have a standard interface to program to and a standard case file level infrastructure to call upon for our software. IBM can showcase an integrated knowledge worker environment computer that can run the software on any mix of the major operating systems. Seats would be added up from all communication sessions, with concurrent CGI jobs counting web activity. This is nothing that couldn't be done for Christmas. It's just marketing. The way it should be done. rd

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Well sure enough. The link I received didn't start at the top and kjack's message you quote was out of my view. We searched everywhere below that point and couldn't find the messages you found. Unless the client's access to the iSeries is through communication lines, we don't see performance differences between the scenarios of accessing data directly from VRPG or through calling an iSeries pgm to do it for the VRPG app.

[J.Pluta]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Gary said: No, I didn't read what you got out of that other thread...not at all. Really? You didn't see this: Kjack wrote: "We were essentionally rewriting our green screen validations in the VB rules layer, and using regular RPG chains ands reads for the database access layer using ASNA's DataGate technology. We found that the result of going after the data directly using VRPG was ssllooooowwww. We found that limiting the bandwidth to just what you are presenting to the user by keeping the validations and database access on the iSeries was way faster. We did this by scrapping the VB rules layer and VRPG database access altogether and just calling programs on our iSeries." And you accuse ME of not reading for the purposes of understanding! Joe

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

You are right; it's just you. You aren't reading for the purpose of understanding. You confuse forgetting a detail of a problem with forgetting the problem and you won't give it up. It wasn't that the file open dialog didn't work as advertised; there was just something I wanted to do with it that wasn't advertised and I couldn't discover how to do it. It's also an unfounded opinion that my management didn't get something from me in writing about the situation. They did. No, I didn't read what you got out of that other thread...not at all. Gary

[tleach@sierrapine.com]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

My two cents Hi Everyone! I just wanted to say that my take on all of this is as follows: We all love our iSeries/As400 and we want IBM to do whatever is necessary to re-establish it as the premier computing platform on the entire planet in the minds of everyone! And to do this by marketing a price competitive box! As for the tools that we use to do our jobs, whatever you use that gets the job done for you and still uses the iSeries as the backbone, is the right tool to use! As for the VARPG vs. ASNA AVR issue, I have not used VARPG, so I cannot comment on it. But I have used ASNA's products, which I have mentioned previously in this thread, and I find it to be able to do what we need to have done, and it does it very effectively too! I have it running windows programs at our remote locations and it works just fine in terms of response. I have also used it to create web applications that are working very well for us too. As for converting applications, we are considering trying out ASNA's Monarch product, which converts all of your green screen applications into AVR .Net code. If anyone has tried this product, I would like to hear how it worked for you. Tony

[David Abramowitz]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Joe Pluta wrote: Integration is the real advantage these days, and nothing integrates better than the iSeries. IMO this statement is absolutely true, and most unfortunately absolutely irrelevant to many companies. These firms are unaware of iSeries capabilities, and are unwilling to make comparative analysis for ROI and TCO purposes. They will blindly choose Wintel servers, and pay an arm and a leg for Oracle, because finance is familiar with those terms. And.... Finance is making the buying decisions, not I.T. THEN They turn around and tell I.T. to cut costs. Dave

[J.Pluta]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Molly, you did see that the overall opinion in that thread on the ASNA product was that it was good if you called RPG programs on the host, but slow if you used it to actually write business logic on the client, didn't you? Joe

[J.Pluta]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

"And as a final result, MS has created a software platform that IS proprietary, superior technically, and unlike IBM they don't seem to see a problem with this approach." Hehehehehehe. You've got to be kidding! Throughout the 90's Microsoft's MANTRA was that the iSeries is a proprietary box! Every sales pitch you saw, every argument you read, Microsoft was shoving the "open systems" concept down our throats. Only after Java threatened MS's stranglehold on the desktop and IBM created the most open server platform on the planet did Microsoft suddenly change its tune to decrying that "proprietary is good", and "everything under one roof!" Microsoft's spin engine came into play in full force, but nobody's drinking THAT Koolaid anymore. Integration is the real advantage these days, and nothing integrates better than the iSeries. Joe P.S. "Superior technically". In what way???? By requiring security patches on a nearly daily basis? By being unable to deliver a new release within YEARS of its original delivery date? By requiring more memory on a single PC than we use to support ENTIRE COMPANIES using RPG? Drink deeply of the Koolaid, my good friend, and enjoy the holidays with visions of Microsoft Marketing dancing in your head! P.S.S. More like anything less than FIVE seats is Microsoft's market, because as soon as your software becomes more complex than that, all that push-button programming falls down around your ears. I've yet to hear of a company that successfully dumped an iSeries ERP package to move to Microsoft. Unix and SQL occasionally, with a LOT of work and usually far above the original cost and time estimates, but Windows? Not to my knowledge.

[R.Daugherty]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

I didn't say they all or even most of them went to Java, I said many did. Probably should have said some did. I agree, there is no ambiguity about how to develop under Windows. However, Microsoft has also unambiguously failed so far in attempting to develop their Project Green ERP for business. rd

[J.Pluta]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Hey, whatever. You can't remember a show-stopping requirement that caused you to completely scrap an entire technology. That seems odd to me, but that's just me. The same with documenting it; it would seem to me that your management would have wanted some documentation of what caused you to eliminate a free IBM solution in favor of a third-party one. But that's just my opinion. As to classifying your points as conjecture, I hold to my opinion. I have no experience with either, but I didn't say one was better than the other, either. No big deal. As to betting on the support, I base THAT on the incredible responsiveness of the WDSC team for all the questions that have been posted on the WDSCI-L mailing list. Since the products come from the same group, I'm comfortable with my assessment based on my observations of the daily help those people provide for free. I could be wrong; we'll see if I start using the product . Finally (and finally for my input on this thread, at least until I can try VARPG myself), the primary constant I got out of the thread you mention is that ASNA's product is a poor choice for converting existing applications, and that their Datagate product in particular is painfully slow. Is that what you read? Joe

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

One issue I can't recall? How about one detail I can't recall concerning an issue I can recall? And I should document a problem when I can't even find someone at IBM to receive the report? You asked about using VARPG. I gave my experience. You don't like it; even with clarification. You say that you have no experience with either VARPG or ASNA's tools and yet you classify my comments as conjecture. You are willing to bet that IBM's support for VARPG has dramatically improved. You would bet before you investigate? It would be good to learn about current experiences with VARPG. Here's a start. Read what Glenn Kerner and Kjack wrote in this discussion earlier this year. Discussion in MC Press

[mollykj]

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Hi everyone, In case you've been following more recent comments on this article and are interested, here's some history from earlier this year about the question of .net - which we got off onto due to Joe's objection to the comparison of asna vs visual age rpg: Glen Kerner ".NET" 1/5/06 11:41am but I will still take a look at varpg. . . . when I have time. :-)

IMHO: What Will It Take to Turn the System i Around?

Look deeper. Very few have move "backwards" to Java. The majority are with a critical mass of people who have moved to ASP.NET. At worse they have dropped VB in favour of the MS C# product. The MS boys have moved beyond mere GUI windows. They've moved to a platform that is the most intuitive and productive tool for developing Web apps. Websphere and Eclipse and the billion variants of JAVA frameworks are just plan clumbersome. They are nothing in comparison to the ease of use of Visual Studio and the ISS servers. EVERY company below the 500 seat mark is bread and butter for MS's ASP.NET/IIS/SQL Server and they completely dominate this market. And as a final result, MS has created a software platform that IS proprietary, superior technically, and unlike IBM they don't seem to see a problem with this approach. Ron