RE: Hypothetical question -- MIDRANGE-L

"... it was stated that the direction of the company was to move from the
AS/400 and iSeries..." 
 
 There's nothing left to discuss from a facts point of view.  We can have
pleasant discussions and wring our hands in consolation but the decision is
made.  There is no choice but to get on board.

This is a sales issue not a facts issue.  Someone important from IBM has got
to reach the important someone at the hypothetical company and find out the
real issues.  Based upon the suddenness of the decision and the lack of a
better roadmap I believe we can deduce that this decision is not supported
by a rational business decision, but rather is an emotional decision
disguised in smoke and mirrors to diffuse opposition.   

Jeff, keep focused.  Don't allow yourself to be distracted by silly things
like facts and costs.  Focus on the process and the decision maker.  

By the way, a very good use of "the no of a thousand yes's" is to look for
more information.  I am guessing that Andy is experienced with the technique
because of his opening comment:  "I'm not sure that you've given enough
information about your hypothetical situation."  Excellent! Wonderful
opening gambit, just wonderful.  :)
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: 12/31/03 05:46:48
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: Hypothetical question
 
Jeff,
 
I'm not sure that you've given enough information about your hypothetical
situation.  Suppose, for instance, that you have a global company running
JDE World and OneWorld at their various locations.  Suppose that you have
many instances of World, all of which are required to run on an iSeries.
Suppose that you have a few instances of OneWorld, all using the Sun Solaris
hardware platform with an Oracle database server.  The goal of the company
is to upgrade all of their locations to the currently supported version of
OneWorld and to utilize a common hardware platform in support of those
upgrades.
 
In upgrading from World to OneWorld, your existing World platforms are
toast.  They just won't have the horsepower to support the same number of
users in a OneWorld configuration.  In this case, the question you're really
asking is "What is the most appropriate database server for multiple
instances of OneWorld?"  The answer would include hardware/software/support
costs, staffing levels, and all of those other things traditionally included
in that kind of analysis.  If the scenario I describe above is accurate, (or
close to accurate), then I don't think that it is necessarily a bad idea on
its face.  I have to put my iSeries bigotry to the side to say this, but if
your hypothetical company has successful experience running OneWorld on the
Sun platform and does not have such experience with the iSeries, it is
reasonable to consider the Sun platform.  You will throw out all of your
existing World platforms anyway.
 
There are legitimate reasons to go either way, and initial cost of the
platforms is a significant part of the executive decision-making process.  I
would not write off either direction as a bonehead mistake.
 
Is this close to your (hypothetical) situation?
 
Regards,
Andy Nolen-Parkhouse
 
> Say your company had several instances of JDE globally, mostly running on
> AS/400's.  Say further that during a global meeting it was stated that the
> direction of the company was to move from the AS/400 and iSeries to Sun
> Solaris.
>
> What are some key reasons that this would be a bad idea?
>
>
> Jeff Carey