Fw: liberty or death?

["Jerome Draper" <jdraper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

An interesting thread from elsewhere.......

> > > It might require losing our IBM pride, but it also gets us a better
> > > value, and that's what really counts. Give me liberty or give me
> > > death.
>
>
> Interesting comments, but speed is not everything if
> the steering is broke or a wheel falls off, occationally.
> The iseries has relability as never seen in the Wintel
> platforms.
>

And another....

> You simply have to shake your head in disbelief at IBM and it's foot in
> mouth approach to marketing/packaging the iSeries.
>
> The have grown accustomed to the large dollar deals that assume everyone
is
> on board with spending enormous sums of cash to have software from IBM.
That
> is simply no longer the case and has rendered IBM irrelevant in the
> mainstream of independent software vendors and in smaller businesses.
>
> The large licensing fees are a gouging point that they will never lose...
>
> freedom is a word... being free is an act
>
>
> > ************************** NEWS Wire Daily *************************
> > An iSeries Network Publication         http://www.iseriesnetwork.com
> > Home of iSeries NEWS
> > Issue 670                                            August 23, 2002
>
> > http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/nwn/story.cfm?ID=14750
> >
> > ** FROM SAMUEL LUNDMARK, via e-mail:
> > I just finished reading the Al Barsa's response to Colin Wells
> > concerning Fast400 in the latest NEWS Wire Daily (July 26). I'm an
> > independent software vendor who has had eight years prior AS/400
> > development experience. I used to design, code, test, and support
> > IBM solutions for the apparel-manufacturing sector. Now, I write,
> > test, sell, and support library-automation software for [more than]
> > 1,700 customers.
> >
> > The iSeries is a great product line, but IBM is making the same
> > mistakes that it made in the past with the PC platform. Comments
> > like "ultimately they will have to pay the piper" are fundamentally
> > flawed in that we who are looking to purchase new iSeries systems
> > are taking those statements into account in a day when we can buy
> > cheap CPU with Linux or Unix systems running Java, which is what we
> > are using anyway.
> >
> > I love the iSeries platform, but for smaller customers considering
> > the platform, why bother? Larger customers might have a harder time
> > following this path, but the Intel commodity-priced systems we have
> > running Linux/Unix work just fine, have higher Java performance
> > numbers in general, and have no crazy limiters to force us into a
> > "pay the piper" scheme. We get the source code, can modify the
> > systems if need be, etc.
> >
> > By the way, I exited the Microsoft camp for good after they locked
> > into this same tune. It's cheaper for us to relearn some things now
> > and be on open platforms (freewill choices) than to get locked into
> > marketing systems that encompass every aspect of our businesses and
> > products.
> >
> > The problem I have with the iSeries is that I will become locked
> > into a platform from which I might not be able to exit easily. If I
> > accept the benefits of the iSeries JVM -- such as excellent
> > performance with native-compiled Java classes, enhanced
> > serialization techniques, etc., which compensate somewhat for the
> > higher MHz ratings of non-iSeries systems -- I lose my option of
> > free-choice. I can get the latest non-iSeries JVMs from Sun
> > Microsystems, run them on speedier Intel-based systems, and we can
> > tune those systems in the future to give more headroom.
> >
> > If I lock into the IBM JVMs, I have to wait longer for that specific
> > JVM, probably have to use IBM-specific techniques to realize the
> > same performance levels, etc. In a day with excellent, stable SMP
> > Xeon systems with much larger CPU caches, much higher MHz ratings,
> > very high memory bandwidth, excellent I/O bandwidth even using cheap
> > IDE RAID devices, and incredibly low prices, it's really difficult
> > to justify choosing the iSeries where we are promised that we will
> > "pay the piper" if we tune it in a way that IBM doesn't care for.
> >
> > It might require losing our IBM pride, but it also gets us a better
> > value, and that's what really counts. Give me liberty or give me
> > death.