Re: AS/400 upgrade costs

>>>
>>>
>>>SCHENCK_DONALD wrote:
>>>
>>>> Nonetheless, a rewrite using VB to run on a PC is going to be the most
>>>> economical alternative at this point.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>  Just curious...what kind of application will you be running.
>>>
>>>Looking at the current labor costs for anyone who can properly design a data
base
>>>and a full application to manage it, much less program it, (factored with
the
>>>tax/benefits burden) you'll need to crank out this application in about 200
hours
>>>to break even.



Well ... the operating system upgrade is about $3,000.

Then, there's about 4,000 application programs that need to be made Y2K
compliant -- some RPG, some COBOL.

Then there's about 500 data files.

This is a payroll service, and the AS/400 programming (which I inherited as a
consultant) is a mess. There's 50 application libraries, one for each client.
Whenever a new client is signed on, they simply copy all the source and object
from one library into a new library. Then, any necessary modifications are made
to the programs.

Because of this, a single program might appear 50 different times, but 48 of
them are identical; the other two might have 20 percent difference.

A PERFECT opportunity for object-oriented programming.

Meanwhile, rewriting a payroll application in VB would take ... what? ... about
200 hours? Remember: all the files and calculations have already been written;
I'd only need to "translate" the stuff to VB.

I'd be using object-oriented programming, so I can eliminate any redundant code
and replace the "unique" parts with separate objects.

So ... I'll quote the payroll system based on 400 hours (at $60 per hour), so
that's $24,000. Compare that to 4,000 programs (at 15 minutes each, that's
$60,000) and 500 files (at 30 minutes each, that's $15,000), and we have a
rewrite costing $24,000 versus an upgrade costing $78,000. And with the
rewrite, we have a totally new system versus the old kludgy one.

(there are some other systems besides payroll, but they're pretty minor)

Not to mention lower cost of maintenance ... Easier to upgrade.

This can all run on her existing Pentium 133. This is a very small business;
one person.

I can install an Ethernet card ($40) and add another PC and it's a network.

Remote users? They can attach using RAS.


-- Don Schenck
DonS@SchenckTech.com
www.SchenckTech.com

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