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** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
This is a discussion about Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard.
This is a discussion about Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard.
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
On the iSeries front page, the second item under "Featured Topics" has the following text: "Ordering entitled software upgrades - iSeries makes it simpler than ever - saves you time and effort." With a link to this URL: http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/swupgrade/ It appears that if you have a customer number and an order number *or* system number, you are apparently allowed to order upgrades to entitled software, like WDSC. I personally haven't tried it, but I wonder if there's anyone who has? -
Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
Thank you for your article. I am glad I am not the only one that finds it difficult to deal with IBM. It helps my ego to know that I have not been singled out as one that they do not want to sell to. It is really sad that the company with the best minds in technology has the least capable people in customer service and marketing. IBM should take a lesson from Dell. People buy where it is easy to buy whether they get good value or not. The only reason am bothering to look at IBM is that I have been a fan of IBM iron since IBM was good at customer service. This sales process has already cost me one client (and IBM an i5 sale) because I could not get answers quickly enough. One of the nicest things about Dell is the ability to build a configuration online, and get an immediate quote. Does anyone else out there think that it would be helpful in buying iSeries hardware and software if IBM would provide an online configurator to let us quickly see the effect of adding and or changing components? Again, it just seems to me that it would be smart for IBM to make it easy for me to buy their products.Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
This is quite a turn of events. Years ago, IBM had the best service in the business, and the best service by a wide margin. In the early 80s I managed a small S/34 shop on the gulf coast of Florida. Despite being small fry, I knew my SE, CE, and Sales rep on a first name basis. It was not uncommon to have an unannounced visit just to see if I needed anything. The CE would drop by periodically with a mini-vacuum for the printers without even being asked! IBM reps would attend user group meetings, and fruitcakes at holiday time was the norm. I can still get a visit from an SE by creating a problem record and sending it through ECS. CEs appear to be gone, and I have no idea who my sales rep has been for my last five clients. DaveComment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
Joe... your article was VERY entertaining! I think IBM's techical services are outstanding. If you think your disk repair story is encouraging, check this out: We had a drive drop at night (no night staff). The next morning i checked my messages from home. An IBM rep called to let me know that my iSeries "called home" and reported that a drive had dropped, that the drive would be at my place of business by 9:00AM and the CE would be in at 10:00AM to replace it. When i got to work (a little after 9) the drive was sitting on my desk and the CE was waiting for me in the cafeteria having coffee. We went into the computer room, he yanked out the bad drive and plugged in the new one... end of problem. Dell is good on the sales side and when the problems are simple, their tech support is OK. Anything complicated usually gets the "Reformat the drive and reload the OS" fix. But i'd like to see their (or anyone elses) WinTel servers be able to diagnose problems and call for help on that level. Sadly, IBM really doesn't seem to have a clue when it comes to marketing the system (i still get that "it's old technology" line from anyone outside the platform), and it's very confusing when you have to upgrade or talk to your business partner when the lease is up. But it's still better than the alternatives. Ahhh... only 20 more years to go (assuming my 401k doesn't dwindle)! B) Oh, by the way... Tell your editor its perfectly normal to have crazy insane people on staff. At least they won't have to spend a lot on entertainment at holiday parties.Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
Robert... i tried your suggestion and went to http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/swupgrade/, followed the directions and had my customer# rejected with a note to call the Help Desk. I did that and was greeted by a pleasant, but very unsure of himself person who said that if you went to V5R2 before june, you were out of luck because the licenses are not electronic and couldn't be converted. His solution was to upgrade to V5R3 then go back to see what could be upgraded. He seemed a little embarassed when i asked why i would need to check for upgrades when i had just finished upgrading.... But thanks for the suggestion, it was worth a shot. Who knows, if you have V5R3 or installed V5R2 after june, it may just workComment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
From an ISV perspective I don't see how spending 15K over 5years(including incidentals) at a minimum equates to a bargain. Considering multi-platform support issues, the fact that most ISV's do IT as a day-job, software for a Wintel box is usually not an issue. I'll get a whole lot more miles picking the cheapest iSeries used machine I can find and by a new Sun Workstation with all software, tons of open source and Linux to boot. So for around 2K I can get a V5r2 box, and for 29.95/month a new ultra-sparc workstation. IBM's going to have to do a lot better than $3000 yearly to attract the masses. If IBM really wants ISV's to build for them, give them everything including Client Access for $29.95/month. If that happens I'll immediately cancel my Blockbuster account and get the new iSeries developer special instead! Seriously I have purchased over 4 midrange boxes over the years, so these so-called "specials" are wearing thin compared to the rest of the market.Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
Uh. Huh? I guess I don't understand any of this response. We're talking about spending $15,000 for a multi-user server and all the development tools as opposed to spending the same on a couple of Dell servers. What does "software for a Wintel box is usually not an issue" mean? For that matter, what does "the fact that most ISV's do IT as a day-job" mean? An ultra-sparc? What can you do with it? What runs on it? Certainly not Wintel software. So now I'm really confused. Are you suggesting that an ultra-sparc is the development platform of choice? Ultrasparc IIIs are expesive little computers: "Suggested list pricing starts at $19,800 for a standard configuration of dual 750MHz processors, 1GB of memory, and 36GB of FC-AL disk drives." I think the Ultrasparc IVs are more expensive, bnt more powerful. JoeComment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
You mentioned ISV's not SMB's so presumably this is targeted to whet the appetites of that group and I'm saying most will continuing to buy used machines because this is really not that attractive to an individual software developer on the iSeries. If you stick to a true ISV then considering all the issues, incidental cost, considerations for multi-platform growth, this is really not all that attractive when I can purchase a used machine. <> I have much more on any of my Wintel machines that I have on my iSeries boxes for little to no cost since as an ISV I also < >. Which means since I work for a software engineering firm procuring development software is not an issue. < > Yes. You are comparing apples to oranges. An iSeries is not at all a reasonable comparison to a Windows OS. A more aligned comparison would be a Sun Solaris 10 machine that can also run Linux out of the box. So Sun has very cheap brand new machines for developers that can run anything you want. However, if you want to compare a Wintel purchase to iSeries for an ISV, okay fine. Let's just take one of my PC's, equipped with Oracle 9i, 10g, OAS, Visual Studio, Eclipse, JBuilder, Oracle Developer, etc,etc. Cost $0. And much of this was not paid for by my employer either. So what's your point? < > Well for starters most major companies sporting high transaction web sites all use Sun machines. I work for a consulting firm and every commercial company or medium to large agency we have developed software for be it on internet/intranet using J2EE, Client/server, etc since the 90’s all with few exceptions use Sun boxes both as AS’s and DBMS’s(sadly some play the Windows server game too). Primarily it started to sport Oracle servers but then moved on to host most of the web and app servers we deploy. < > Well for example, the iSeries is well behind the curve regarding RDBMS's. I can get at least 3 RDBMS's that I know of on any machine for cheap or free -- Oracle, Postgres and MySQL. All well integrated into those environments. Yes, you can get a free version of Oracle on any machine for development purposes. And UDB/400 is not really DB2. Now if they offered DB2, then that would be a fair comparison. But as an ISV, using generic or mildly tweaked SQL and be able to offer the ability to run on a variety of DB’s is far more attractive than saying you have to use “X”. So I can only use UDB/400 on the iSeries, that’s a problem. < > An ISV does not need all of this. This will do(take your pick): http://store.sun.com/CMTemplate/CESe...PROMO&cid=6179 You mentioned ISV’s, I’m an ISV on the iSeries and I don’t agree with your point that this is a great deal. Much better deals can be had free and paid for an ISV and if I’m developing for the iSeries, specifically the OS/400 partition then I’ll by used. An ISV decision at this point in time cannot be solely to iSeries or not. If my software is only iSeries based I may be attracted to this offer, but that probably will not be the general rule. To wit, 11K at the low end after fees and maintenance, probably turns into 15K and that’s being generous, excluding other iSeries only peripherals, so now realistically I’m paying 15K-20K over 5 years for one machine, From any but a large ISV perspective I don’t see how this makes good economic sense compared to other platforms and that’s what you’re comparing too. Out of the box I can have more software running on a Sun workstation or PC for under 1K. Now I’m might get the high-end at $1800 with Linux to boot but haven’t made that decision yet. Just what do you think everyone runs on and with what software out there anyway? No ISV I know of is going to fork over 15-20K for one machine where I can only build for one platform. I've been using RDBMS since the early 90's, and the iSeries just now can talk fully relational. I'll certainly keep the box in my stable but not at the exclusion of all else and certainly not at that price. Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
IBM has another serious flaw. As an independant contractor for the As400 (I suppose I'll eventually call it the I5) market, I would love to learn websphere, and I would love to have a copy of WDSC. I can't get one. I don't have an As400 sitting at home. My client base is not interested in websphere, because no-one at IBM has truly explained the benefits. Ever since IBM decided to rename everything Websphere, there has been nothing but confusion in the small businesses that I work in, and they just say "I don't need that GUI crap, why would I want to put a whole bunch of PC's into a shop floor? Manufacturing shop floor data entry only needs green screen." So, here I sit. I want to have WDSC to play with, so I can learn how to use it (Like I am already doing with Visul Studio, BTW), but since I don't have an AS400, I'm not "entitled" to have a copy. I'm not "Entitled" to want to develop modern applications on the As400? IBM should make this development software free for anyone to download and use, even in a stand-alone setting. Maybe that will spuradoption of it's Websphere model by developers and Small businesses. Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
If you stick to a true ISV then considering all the issues, incidental cost, considerations for multi-platform growth, this is really not all that attractive when I can purchase a used machine. Actually, I'm a true ISV and I think $200 a month is pretty reasonable compared to the thousands I shell out for new workstations just to keep up with the requirements of the latest release of Windows. You are comparing apples to oranges. An iSeries is not at all a reasonable comparison to a Windows OS. Actually, Microsoft contends that it is, and at a much lower price point; that's the reason for the article. A more aligned comparison would be a Sun Solaris 10 machine that can also run Linux out of the box. First off, the article compares Wintel and iSeries, nothing else. You're the one constantly bringing up Solaris. I can't help you there, because I don't know a single person who develops for Solaris, nor do I know a single shop that uses Solaris. You might be able to use Solaris to build pure Java applications, but that's a completely different architectural approach. I don't believe Java is a good language for business development; I much prefer RPG (available on the iSeries as part of the price) or COBOL (also available). For systems programming you can use C or C++, all also available. I use Java for web programming. And it's available as well. Just what do you think everyone runs on and with what software out there anyway? My client base runs a whole lot of RPG. No ISV I know of is going to fork over 15-20K for one machine where I can only build for one platform. One platform? Well that's news to me. Even though I don't much like Java as a business language, I can develop fully functional Java applications that run just as well on the iSeries as on any other platform (except that they run better using the iSeries as a back end). Better yet, if I don't try to minimize my devleoment costs by providing the same mediocre software on every platform, I can build multi-tiered applications that I can deploy across a wide variety of servers, using the strengths of each. I've been using RDBMS since the early 90's, and the iSeries just now can talk fully relational. I'll certainly keep the box in my stable but not at the exclusion of all else and certainly not at that price. According to Codd's rules, there are no fully relational databases. Exactly what database do you get for free on that nifty Solaris box? Probably some freeware Hypersonic DB equivalent. Whatever it is, try the following: Take a million record file. Order it by name. Now position yourself at the name "Darlene". Read the next three records. Then read the previous three records. Now, without creating a new cursor, position yourself to the name "Cabot" with a single operation and then read the next three records. I can do that in DB2/400, and not in any SQL variant. That sort of navigational access provides capabilities required for true business application programming as opposed to executive information systems and the other stuff that SQL excels at. My guess is that you've never written an MRP generation or a finite forward scheduler. SQL is great for queries, but nowhere near as good for complex business requirements. Anyway, you've got a clear opinion. You like Solaris. Okay. We'll see who is in business ten years from now as an ISV, you or me. That will be the real deciding factor, won't it? JoeComment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
<> Hmmm, well let's see have you ever written a multi-threaded connection pool for a major web-server that didn't have one(Domino's Go web-server at the time). I did, it was in production for a major agency, that was back in the 90's. Ever written a program that cracks iSeries system security? Ever read IMPI, ever patched an OS program? You think you're something special? < > I've seen your SQL Joe in a few posts and your explanations of native IO, it's not really your forte. < > ROFL! I’ve probably written well over 100K lines of PL/SQL in the last few years, designed many DB’s, written countless stored procs, functions, etc. Use UDB/DB2 all the time for iSeries work. Did I actually write anything that would lead you to believe you could be insulting or that your childish example actually means anything. < Comment
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Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard
** This thread discusses the article: Weaving WebSphere: We're off to See the Wizard **
I'm not going to bother with the rest of the post, since we're already at the end of useful communication. But I find it necessary to address this, at least: <Comment
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