Re: Is the AS/400 a dying Ember

Dave_Dahlstrom@triangle-group.com writes:

> I feel the need to talk, to talk about the future of the AS/400 from a
>  commercially viable viewpoint

The AS/400 will be around for a decade or more thanks to a strong user 
community, just as some past computer platforms were around long after their 
manufacturers abandoned them.

I think a more core question is whether IBM has decided, consciously or 
unconsciously to get out of the computer hardware & software business & 
support for same & go purely:

into marketing ideas in which the marketing people do not understand nor need 
to care what came before or how these ideas might fit into a larger picture & 
since this is a philosophy of many of IBMs competitors IBM would not have any 
unique quality to offer as in years past;

and into financing purchase of hardware & software & support for same which 
would dry up for IBM as their hardware & software ceases to be perceived as 
competitive, as IBM becaomes incapable of communicating what is unique.

In other words is the corporate blindness to the critical nature of nitch 
strengths, where AS/400 division can do meaningful advertising only where IBM 
corporate does not catch them in the act of doing so,
extended to all other IBM jewels, not just the AS/400, so that IBM is now on 
a path that spells the end of the corporation in another generation, or is 
there enough momentum that IBM can survive a decade or two of such idiocy & 
eventually bounce back, or perhaps someone at the top of IBM recognize that 
the AS/400 division needs to be sold off to some other company & we might 
expect that other company to not do as good a job as IBM did, unless the 
buyer is a consortium from the community of IBM AS/400 partners.

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
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