Re: The future of computing

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Taylor" <john.taylor@telusplanet.net>
To: <MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2001 6:39 PM
Subject: RE: The future of computing


> > In total honesty, I have felt that the people who deployed NT
> > server for the
> > majority of applications in critical locations within enterprises over
the
> > last 9 years are simply willing to rip off their employer for a
paycheck.
>
> Really? I guess that makes me unethical, selfish, and a disgrace to my
> profession.

I am surprised and sorry to learn that.

> > Now, some of those people I am sure convinced themselves that they were
> > installing the best choice of application server. Some of the
> > cases, it was
> > the best choice. But in the majority of cases it was not the best
> > choice and
> > the person installing it either did or should have known that to be the
> > case.
>
> And since I'm well acquainted with the AS/400, that makes my decisions
> irresponsible at best. Perhaps I can chalk it off to my obvious delusions.

Don't discout self-delusion so easily. With money involved, people often
find it easy to convince themselves that what they are doing is the "right"
thing.

> > The reason I feel so strongly about that is it shames me to think that
my
> > profession is not only populated with the kind of whores who will
install
> > whatever makes them money whether or not it is the best choice,
> > but that is
> > exactly the sort of mentality that makes up the lion's share of this
> > profession.
>
> And I presume that an IBM BP selling a low-end 270 with an
> FSIO-Whatever-it's-called-now as a file/print server would not be
considered
> such a whore?

Says who? My gosh, for years there were IBM whores all over Las Vegas. I'm
talking about guys who worked for IBM and those who were BPs. But in most
shops there were managers, and/or programmers who would actually evaluate
the solutions being offered.

I remember going into a golf/tennis distributor in Las Vegas and setting up
their System/36. Installing software, etc. I had been told they were
upgrading but they'd taken delivery of a smaller system so they were
awaiting additional memory/disk. One of the employees was complaining about
performance and I pointed out it would be better when the upgrade arrived.
That was when I found out they hadn't been told that was the deal. The IBM
sales rep and the BP who contracted me had both decided to commit this
customer to this path and then force him into the upgrade to get it to fly.
Whores. Fraudulent whores.

Those guys aren't gone. Right now that very same business partner and that
very same IBM employee, who is now a business partner, make money hand over
fist marketing NT networks. Now, they will sell anything, AS/400s, Novell,
Unix variants, but they tend to focus on Microsoft products because they are
the most lucrative.

> > I feel that there was a time when people would actually research
> > technology
> > for a chosen application and would come back to management with what
they
> > felt was the best solution. I feel that it is much more common to just
> > suggest the solution "I" know most about now. If an AS/400 professional
> > isn't willing to determine whether or not the AS/400 is the best choice
to
> > deploy the new web app, and the NT professional isn't willing to
determine
> > whether or not NT is the best backbone for the data warehouse, and on
down
> > the line, then they are pretty low.
>
> Now I'm confused. Did you just acknowledge that the AS/400 might not be
the
> best choice for everything that involves a computer?

Duh.

> > C'mon John, apples and oranges. If the only computers ever made were the
> > ones being made in 1943, you think there'd be one in every house?
>
> > By the way, you should be careful before taking a shot like that
> > about heads
> > of corporations, It could lead to some flood of quotes from
> > current heads of
> > corporations.
>
>
> And those that chose to do so would only be displaying that they've
> completely missed the point. It was not a shot at Mr. Watson, or at Jim.
It
> was an example of the dangers inherent in adopting an isolationist
attitude.

Isolationist attitude? Is that what it is when you prefer using the best
tool for the job?

It's not like you can take the NT of today and try to justify all the things
installed with it over the last (almost) decade with the current product.
How many years has this been such a joke? MIS shops with AS/400s running for
years with no unscheduled downtime replacing CPUs with platforms that
require constant care and still crash mercilessly.

I would say, "The AS/400 is lousy for xxx." or "NT would be good for xxx"
but each judgment should be made in the perspective of the overall needs of
that shop. You can't say the AS/400 isn't the best choice for Notes, but I
know of cases where it sure wasn't. But I know that there will be cases
where it is the best choice.

The bottom line, John, is that the state of the marketplace says something
about the consumers there. You and I should look for the best solutions, no
matter the source. Even if they for some reason come from the horrible
Oracle demons.

> -john


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