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-----Original Message-----I have only recently put the URL of my site on DNS, and now there is public access to it, I was thinking about what AS/400 links I might provide.
From: Rob Dixon [mailto:rob.dixon@erros.co.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2000 5:21 AM
To: midrange-L@midrange.com
Subject: What is an AS/400?In the vain(?) hope that one or two non AS/400 users might drop by, as a result of external links to my site that I intend to create, I thought that the first AS/400 link on my own site should be to a site that can answer the question "What is an AS/400?". I am not looking for a detailed account of the differences between V4R4 and V4R5, but an unprejudiced factual comparison of the AS/400 with its competition.
IBM provides IBM AS/400e Brand Overview Guided Tour (what a mouthfull!). Whilst it provides many excellent points, I do not think that it provides an overview that will inspire NT or Unix users to jump ship. Unless they get something positive from the top level, they may not be bothered to navigate through the links. If, like most of the rest of the world, you knew nothing about the AS/400, would this opening page compel you to investigate further?
For instance, in the first sentence it refers to 600,000 systems sold If you have large numbers of small servers in your company and do not realise that one AS/400 might replace the lot, then you may not be impressed. You might well dismiss IBM's claim that the AS/400 is the world's most popular multiuser busines computer out of hand and read no further. You might be more impressed by it being installed in 98% of Fortune 500 companies as stated in the second sentence, but the competition can probably make similar claims these days.
BTW, I thought that 700,000 systems had been sold - what is the correct number?.
What do others think? Is there a better link?
If there is no other link and, like me, you think the IBM link above is less than perfect, should we together create a document that we can all use? If this is the only choice, and people post their bullet points - not essays - on the list (or send them to me direct), I would be willing to pull them together into a finished document which can be further refined over time. I am thinking of a two or three page summary that would explain what makes the AS/400 stand out in a crowd. Since we are all bursting with ideas about why the AS/400 is so good, it may not be easy to distill these into a succinct synopsis.
If people think that there is also a need for something more detailed, then this might be done as a second stage.
It might also be good to provide some links to AS/400 successes - such as the reported migration from 23 AS/400's to 1600 NT Servers at Microsoft and then back again to 23 AS/400's. I would be willing to put up links to such stories or the stories themsleves provided that they can be substantiated fully.
We shouldn't have to do IBM's job for them but ...!
Your reactions please.
Rob Dixon
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Erros plc
44 (0) 1844 239 339
http://www.erros.co.uk - The AS/400 Neural Database for the Internet
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