RE: Upgrade Considerations: Software vs Hardware

As referenced by Steve, one key issue is to determine your level of
commitment to the IBM midrange platform (in whatever form IBM chooses to
direct it).  Things to factor in are the traditionally low staffing overhead
and operational stability.  The usual list of pros and cons can be evaluated
for your particular situation... my personal commitment is rather high, and
I am willing to stake my career on the AS/400.

Specifically addressing the MAPICS upgrade issue...

We considered upgrading our existing Model 600 to the 720 series this past
January.  At the time, the hardware costs to 'upgrade' the 600 to a 720 were
in the $35-37K range.  In order to re-license our existing MAPICS XA4
application (without adding any additional modules), the total
initial/annual licensing fees were in the $85K range IF we chose to transfer
the license agreement to a per-user basis;  the costs were HIGHER if we
chose to remain at a processor-tier basis because the feature code of the
720 platform would have 'upgraded' our tier-level.  This broke the
opportunity for me to pursue the upgrade... we remain on the '600 at XA4,
and I still sometimes resent the overhead that our particular implementation
of MAPICS has presented.  

I have to also agree with Steve and Ray that the replacement of the
application infrastructure is a huge obstacle for the end-users to overcome,
as well as the loss-of-investment in the IT skill-set.

I have posted and followed posted threads in the past and I am still not
quite satisfied that one choice is significantly better than the other.  I
would be interested to learn of the results of your deliberations.

regards,
Tom Ashworth
MIS Manager, Altec Lansing Technologies Inc.
Routes 6 & 209
Milford,  PA  18337
tashwort@altecmm.com            570-296-1276

> -----Original Message-----
> From: aldg [SMTP:aldg@mail.rvi.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 12:38 PM
> To:   MAPICS Mailing List
> Cc:   Gershen, Al; Gershen, Al
> Subject:      Upgrade Considerations: Software vs Hardware
> 
> Hi Mapics ML:
> 
> My employer has an interesting situation to ponder and I thought I would
> request some feedback from the ML members because you may have been though
> a similar situation before.
> 
> We've been a Mapics DB (Y2K, Mod 4) user for many years on a CISC version
> of the AS/400.  If we upgrade to Mapics XA, we have to replace our
> hardware with RISC type because EA doesn't support CISC.
> 
> We have been looking at other ERP software such as HarrisData because it
> will run on our existing hardware and it appears to be similar to Mapics.
> 
> The other consideration is that apparantly IBM won't be offering any
> upgrades or support for our old CISC machine in the future.
> 
> My employer is trying to make the best decision given the economic
> restraints it has to operate in.  If money were no object, we would
> probably upgrade to XA and get the new hardware but this is the real world
> that we are dealing in and the decision has to be analyzed from all points
> of view.
> 
> Please comment on this situation so that I can offer my employer some of
> your suggestions on this matter.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Above message before copy enclosure (if any) was sent by:
> 
> Al Gershen
> Grants Pass, OR 97526 
> aldg@mail.rvi.net & aldg@webtv.net;
> and thru ICQ # 12342782
> 
> --
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