RE: Free OS/400

Unfortunately,  all of this discussing really is showing that even the
"choir" is starting to sing flat.  I have never met anyone that has
worked on or with the 400 for any length of time that has not thought of
it as the best product in this market space.  With the biggest problem
of a GUI technically, and marketing business wise, most of us do not
understand the problem (with IBM that is).

I agree with Bob in a lot of ways, but hope not all of them.

Personally, I would like to see Rochester do a leveraged buyout and get
out from big blues covers.  That won't happen of course, but the 400 is
no longer a strategic platform for IBM,  they will support it as long as
revenue makes sense for it to.  Is that 2002 or 3?  I'm not smart enough
to know,  but it sure shows you that having the best product frequently
looses to mediocre products with better marketing (and management
support).

Java certainly has a lot of momentum, and really the only alternative to
MS.  Unfortunately the very thing that vendors use to harp on the 400
about, being proprietary and single vendor,  Microsoft is pulling off
with flying colors.  Lets face it, there are two camps now - Microsoft
and the rest.  Out side of the still strong mainframe (what is that
anyway - a big 400? ;-), all the others are rapidly becoming also ran's.
One big difference between MS and IBM is MS will fight to do something
because Bill wants to (ego, etc.) good or bad.  IBM will strictly look
at the bottom line and make the best decision for them (not the
customer).  In some cases,  the bottom line works good for the company -
but not the customer.

I'd thought a couple bucks in to a management (new management) buyout of
the iSeries,400, XP killer!

IMHO

john

-----Original Message-----
From: jpcarr@tredegar.com [mailto:jpcarr@tredegar.com]
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 6:53 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: RE: Free OS/400




>All new stuff is based on the C language? I'm not sure what you mean by
"All new stuff". You surely don't mean ALL new >stuff?    C# is a
backward
step in my opinion. It's Java with the C baggage added back in. Baggage
that James Gosling >carefully weeded out.
>Alistair Rooney



I think you are being too specific Alistair.    I think Bob meant that
if
you knew C, It's syntax, look and feel,    You would be comfortable with
Java Script, Java and all the rest.

I understand what Mandy and Joe are saying when they talk about the
"Universal" server running all OS's,    However I wouldn't discount
Bob's
predictions out of hand,  as dire as they seem.

Believe me that IBM is capable of dumber things.   Linux and MS is the
corporate strategy.   The other OS's are to some in IBM a troublesome
historical baggage that they would like to "Sunset".

Possibly none of Bob's predictions may come true,   However we are
talking
about the company that brought us OS/2 and then dropped it like an old
toy
without a fight even while it was much superior to anything on the
market.

 john



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