How many running what releases (was: sys/36 to as/400)

Hi,

The answer here is clearly that no one in the world, except possibly God
knows.  Certainly IBM doesn't even know.  There are several problems and
intricacies :

>> BTW, anyone have the installed customer count for the many flavors of
AS/400
>> and a possible breakout of which OS level they are at?

1.      In it's infinite wisdom, when releases of OS/400 were free, IBM allowed
IRs to produce PID media for their customers.  Even though the IR's were
supposed to report what they shipped, there was no (real) enforcement.  The
IR program is (and has always been) out of control).

2.      IBM's record keeping for the total number of releases they shipped
pre-V3 should be accurate.  On the other hand, IBM's record keeping is less
than stellar.  A good computer system might help.

Regardless to points 1 and 2 above, there is no guarantee that any customer
who orders one of the 'free' releases ever has to install it!  (You can
lead a horse to water, but ...)

3.      Desite what I've said above, the use of the SPENDMONEY command isn't a
bad indicator of customer intentions.  If you take the total nuber of
AS/400's ever shipped, subtract out the number of black boxes shipped and
then subtract the number of V3 upgrades shipped to ivory boxes, this might
be a good indication of the number of V2 customers still around.  If IBM
has this number, it would be a good indication of the number of pre-V3
customers around.  Less of course the number of B10s that have been retired
in pairs, and had an old door put on top of them to make a desk..., less
the number of hot copies of V3 that got out because IBM dropped the ball on
enforcement of licensed keys prior to V4R1.

None of this is to negate the fact that, that IBM does have a great deal of
accurate data on what hardware they sold at what levels.  IBM keeps
hardware sales data (using an AS/400), so there is a significantly higher
probability of data stability than on other platforms used by the company.
"B" systems can run anything from V1R1 to V3R2.  "C" systems (yes there
were a few of them) required V1R1M2 or V2R2 (sorry - can't remember which).
 "D" systems required V2R1. "E" systems required V2R2.  "F" systems
required V2R3 (even the later models like F97).  Models 200 and 300
required V3R0M5, because V3R1 was not stable when it came out (as I
remember, someone at COMMON publicly stated that it "sucked", who was
that), although certain feature codes for these CISC black systems required
V3R1.  To my knowledge, there are no known hardware dependances on V3R2,
but I could be wrong.

A clear point of delineation is RISC.  Models 400 and 500 required V3R6.
There were probably some hardware dependances on V3R7, but I'm not sure.
Models 600 et all required V4R1.   The new model 170 requires V4R2.

Crank all that IBM confidential hardware and software sales data into a
model S40, and do some data mining with some hard work, and you might get
some answers.  Has IBM done this data mining? -  unlikely.  They are too
busy laying off people when they have a lousy third quarter, and then
negating this fact when they make up for it in the fourth quarter.  ("Is
this anyway to run an airline?  You bet...")  [Forget it, you wouldn't
remember those ads unless you are 45 or older.])

My best guess is that there are somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 V2
systems left in the US and Canada (mostly at V2R3 - this negates the
deskholder crowd - see above).  More in other countries.  Y2K hysteria end
e-jump will help many of the V2R3 customers move to V3R2 and V4R2 this
year.  If IBM had it on the ball, they would have announced e-jump for
V3R0M5 and V3R1 at the same time a they announced it for V2R3, but instead
they decided to send a signal to customers who invested in V3 that they
made a bad investment. ("Where's the beef?"  [Another ad you wouldn't
remember unless you were at least 25 or older.]] Hopefully this will be
rectified by COMMON, or else Soundoff will be lot's of fun.

This is Al, on vacation in rainy cold Florida.

Al

PS:     TIA for all the MS '97 responses, I will deal with them when I get home
next week.


Al Barsa, Jr.
Barsa Consulting, LLC.

(914) 251-9400
(914) 251-9406 (fax)

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