RE: Thats all folks!

> Oludare:
>iSeries is a PROPRIETARY system!

>Not many software companies have the time, courage and patience to deal
>with IBM and all the trouble in keeping up with a proprietary OS.  Most
>software company like to build their software for multiple platforms and
>I don't think, in my opinion, they have good support and encouragement
>from IBM.  It is difficult already for the iSeries to compete with other
>Midrange servers due to pricing not to top it with beaureucracy and
>politics.  IBM will need to change its approach for a wider market for
>the iSeries to gain among all sizes of business.  What good is a system
>that is number 1 in reliability and availability when software company
>don't have easy access to its manufacturer so as to build better
>applications.

>I hope I made my point clear here.

Have you ever waited for a software company to port their app from 32-bit to
64-bit Unix?  Have you ever PAID a company to port their AIX and HP
compatible app to Solaris?  Have you ever worked with an up-to-date package
that was only compatible with desupported releases of Oracle?

Unix is open.  AIX, HP/UX, Solaris, True64, etc. (not to mention Windows
95/98/2000, NT, XP) are PROPRIETARY.  Also, SQL is an open standard, but
Oracle, SQL Server, Informix, etc. are PROPRIETARY.

It may or may not take time, courage and patience for a software company to
deal with IBM.  It sure as hell doesn't take much effort to keep up with
their proprietary OS.  Porting an app from release to release of OS/400 is
child's' play.

I'd venture to say that it takes a fair amount of time, courage and patience
for a software company to deal with any SINGLE Unix variant and any SINGLE
relational database.  And if the software company is building their software
for multiple platforms that same time, courage and patience must be passed
on to the customers as will.

-Jim

James P. Damato
Manager - Technical Administration
Dollar General Corporation
<mailto:jdamato@dollargeneral.com>