RE: Changed to: Interactive Tax

> You had to go to Standard Oil to use a combustion engine.
> You have to go to IBM to handle large databases?

I think it's a bit more tricky than that.

I often hear mention of alternatives to the iSeries, if you're not happy
with paying IBM what they want to charge you.

For other platforms, it is easier to say - and do - 'HP is charging too
much, we'll switch to Sun' because more often than not, the application
*and* database you are using will be available for both. End users might not
even know the switch was made.

In the iSeries world, moving to different hardware & software solution is
going to be more work, more expensive (at the time) than biting the bullet
and paying up. In the long term in may have been more cost efficient to have
made the jump, but as time goes on you get locked more and more into having
no alternative but to bite the bullet and pay up...