Re: OS/400 on a Sun unix

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:46:31 -0400
 "Adam Lang" <aalang@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> In all honesty, how many sales do you think you would
> generate selling the
> OS separate?  I don't know anyone that buys an iSeries
> just because of the
> OS.  They buy it for the whole package.  You are buying
> stability and
> performance form end to end.  

I can guarentee that 90% of the stability comes from the OS
itself.  But, in order to pay outrageous prices for DASD,
whatever makes one feel comfortable.

Who would buy only an OS?  A lot of people.  Unix, Linux,
FreeBSD, Windows, DOS...  

> 
> I put it that it would be a LOT of work, not a little. A
> LOT of work for
> making an OS cross platform for a very very small market.

The market is only "small" because it's only available on
the AS/400 hardware.  The Unix market was small until
Linux.  That's like saying the market for personal aircraft
is small.  But make that option available to the average
consumer and....

>  And it isn;t even
> making it cross platform .. it is makign it cross
> platform while retaining
> stability.  The vast majority of problems with Linux and
> Windows usually
> comes down to hardware drivers.  Now you want to
> introduce that to the
> OS/400 as well?

Well, then we're blaming the drivers, not the OS.  Not to
mention the "problems" with Linux and Windows are HUGELY
overrated.  I have yet to have any major problems.  Most
are from users who delete the wrong file or do something
they are not supposed to do.

I run 5 windows machines (2 XP Pro, 1 XP home, 98 and 95)
that run 24/7, rarely rebooted (except my HTPC running
XPPro that only gets turned on for movies on the 92" FP
<snicker>).  

I did have one linux machine (Madrake 7.0 previously, and
until I took it out of the loop Slackware 9.0) that also
ran 24/7 and was rebooted maybe once a week.  Problems?  I
had virtually zero.

Windows offers a lot of updates, yes.  They have security
holes, yes.  But, compare the number to the number of PTFs
on the average CUM.  Give the hackers a challenge and
they'll find security holes in any platform.  Windows is
the most used, therefor it's easy to see why it is
targeted.

They all have plusses, they all have downfalls.  Nothing is
impossible and in this world we seem to want to make
everything cross-platform except OS/400.  

Just my .02.. you don't have to agree.  Just a dream of
mine I guess.

Brad
www.bvstools.com