Re: CODE/400

Jon,

In a message dated 98-03-02 19:06:53 EST, you write:

> My apologies if this sounds more critical than I intend, but I wante to play
>  devil's advocate and put to you the kind of questions that my management 
> would pose if I put forward your suggestion as-is.  I do have a thought of
my own 
> at the end which is in line with some other stuff that I'm working on -
comments
>  (e-mail or here on the list) welcome.

Didn't sound critical at all.  Seemed to pretty much sum up the discussion to
me ;-)!

>   >> 1)  Most techies would like have better programming tools.
>  You could have fooled me judging from some of the posts on this topic.
>  Although I admit that I'm happy to see it being aired in this fashion.
There's
>  no such thing as bad publicity right ?

I disagree.  I think that most posts have just reflected the management brick
walls that most run up against when trying to get new tools.  You've got to
admit, the "per seat" charge is pretty steep for CODE/400 -- especially when
you consider that many (most?) companies violate their license agreements for
VB and other similar languages by "plopping them in" wherever they feel like
it.  Developers have to "choose their battles" carefully, and many need a
hardware upgrade worse than they need a new development tool.

<<snip the agreed with item 2>>

>   >> 3)  They currently have a good programming tool w/ a GUI interface.
>  Not sure I understand this comment.

I think that the original poster was implying that, with multiple PC sessions,
SEU/SDA/RLU can become pseudo-GUI, with as many windows open as you would
like.

>   >> 4)  This tool currently has a relatively very low market penetration.
>  As a percentage of all non-green screen development tools for the AS/400,
it
>  has a very high penetration.

But, with the exception of the proprietary CASE tools (none of which provides
adequate "Upper CASE" support) that the major manufacturing software suppliers
have forced their customers into using, most Fortune/1000 companies with
/400's do not utilize _ANY_ GUI development tool.  At least one of those
suppliers (ahem) still doesn't provide its newest tool to their customers.

<<snip agreed with item 5>>

>   >> Solution?  Easy!
>   >> Include it in the application toolset (i.e. PDM, SEU, SDA, etc.)  If
>  necessary charge nominally more (i.e. $25-50) for the suite.
>  
>  Oh how I wish it was easy!  A nominal charge would just get "lost" in the
>  books,  there'd be nothing to show that the tool was being used and
therefore
>  with no $ and no definitive user base, to justify future enhancement.
>  
>  Counter suggestion.  What if the base product were available free with
ADTS,
>  but you had to pay an additional fee for (say) the debugger, or screen
>  designer, or verifiers, or ........  That way folks could use the base
function
>  but would pay a fee for the enhancements.  That would also allow for the
>  development of future "plug-ins" since both IBM and third parties could see
a
>  revenue stream resulting from them.
>  
>  Thoughts?

My thought _EXACTLY_!  I'm not familiar enough with the product to say what
should and should not be included, but take a page from NetScape -- the base
product is free, but you have to pay to get the "Gold" or "Enterprise"
editions.  Perhaps even add a "Would you like to install the base version of
our CODE/400 development tool?" prompt (with appropriate help text available)
to the CA/400 install?  Maybe a 30 day free trial on the "Extended Edition"
(whoops, probably a bad choice of words
;-)!).  Sounds like a winner to me!

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"A study of economics usually reveals that the best time to buy anything was
last year." -- Marty Allen
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