RE: Why NOT the 400?

Rick,

Just to point out a few of the bumps in the road, our beloved platform has a
few hurdles to clear yet..... I've seen a disturbing tendency on IBMs part
to "embrace and extend" windows technologies into os400.  And in general, I
find these technologies to be useful, but sometimes painfully immature and
sometimes unreliable.  Netserver is a fine example of "Windows only", where
IBM has presumably decided to deny access to shares if it detects OS/2 as
the requester.  Huh?  Why does it matter WHAT client we're using as long as
it conforms to standards......

Crucial technologies like XML are nearly impossible to utilize from our
legacy environments, even though IBM gives lip service to supplying the
needed APIs, it can be (and usually is) more difficult to locate the
appropriate documentation than writing the code and making it work.  But
even if you do get it to work, it often fails for reasons unknown.... Oh,
just IPL and it will come back..... BLAH!  

Touting reliability in todays market is a dangerous course.  There seems to
be less of a case in our industry for reliability, and more of a case for
"ease of assembly".  We know and appreciate the strengths of our platform,
but as long as the rest of the world wants X, Y and Z, they won't be
satisfied with plain old R, P, and G.....

Eric DeLong
Sally Beauty Company
MIS-Project Manager (BSG)
940-898-7863 or ext. 1863



-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Rayburn [mailto:the400man@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, July 27, 2003 8:48 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Why NOT the 400?


Thanks Scott.

I think many of us who have been trained in this industry (myself from the 
early days of the system38) are frustrated with how the 400's been addressed

during the past few seasons.

And I know there are way too many characters out there, both 400 
professionals and CEO's of corporations involved with the 400, who are stone

blind on why this wonderful box is the best solution to keep your data safe 
and accessible. You want a sexy front end? Go ahead. You want a sexy back 
end? You're gonna pay for your stupidity of selection.

Just heard from someone about a large corporation based in NY scrapping 
their 400 environment for an Oracle setup. Oracle. Loaded from head to foot 
with bugs. A friend of mine who works for IBM - NYC as a PM has told me 
often of his pleas with companies to retain the 400 as their warehouse 
management solution instead of the more sexy but unstable and cumbersome 
choices now being offered. He loses most arguments...and when they finally 
go into prodution, there are a myriad of bugs and bad performance issues 
that add another notch to his "I told you so" roster. Programs bombing, 
programs freezing during transactions, slow response times, long hours 
between application turnover, etc. Obviously, IBM makes matters worse with 
their promotional strategy.

Perhaps you are right on the money with your request to take this argument 
outside the 400 community. Somehow, someway, someone needs to educate the 
business population on the value of the 400 as either a back or front office

system and that "sexy" solutions are almost always the worst solutions 
especially when you're trying to produce a stable data environment for your 
operation.



>From: Scott Klement <klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Why NOT the 400?
>Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 01:12:50 -0500 (CDT)
>
>
>Rick,
>
>Asking these questions here on the Midrange-L list is pointless.  You'll
>get a lot of agreement with your position, and you'll get a few people who
>don't really understand why the community is shrinking who will,
>nonetheless, give their conjectures.
>
>However, you'll never find out the real truth here.   Ask your questions
>in other areas, on Windows-related groups, on Unix-related groups, etc.
>
>Asking here is like asking Tipper Gore why G.W. Bush won the election.
>She may be able to conjecture, but she didn't vote for Bush, and it
>wouldn't have been her decision to put him there.
>
>
>On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Rick Rayburn wrote:
>
> > Why NOT?
> >
> > I don't understand. Everybody in - and out of - our industry know the 
>400 is
> > the very best-of-breed choice for management of your back office. Don't
> > heavy-transactional environments flourish better in shallow water? The 
>400
> > does that very well.
> >
> > So, who cares how fast you're speeding down the super highway? You gotta
> > have a vault to protect your crucial data, don't you?
> >
> > So,why is that so hard to market? Doesn't our box provide 
>sufficient-enough
> > access to the big road? Sure it does. Certainly enough for a sizable 
>market
> > share. And that's fine. No sweat.
> >
> > We should be getting all the back office action, right?
> >
> > Shouldn't the 400, "promote itself". It's not as if we are trying to 
>sell a
> > lemon disguised as a peach.
> >
> > We have a solid resource and community. Why does our industry grow 
>smaller?
> >
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