Good News & Bad News

Hi List,

 

Have some good news and some bad news relative to the status of the iSeries
in the market place.

 

Good News:

 

Have a chemical company client who's Headquarters MBA's decided to change
over to Ross Software on a Windows environment but they also said they would
keep their V5.2 820 running with MARCAM software until the Ross Conversion
was done. That was some nine months ago and they now admit that Ross will
never be able to do what MARCAM can but they will keep trying. Money down
the drain with Ross and 3 cheers for the hard working iSeries soldiers who
are currently converting over to a more current version of MARCAM. You
younger folks probable know MARCAM as AVANTIS.

 

Bad News:

 

A large insurance company based in Connecticut has decided to not renew
their iSeries contract. Instead they are switching to browser oriented
software using their Z series machine as the database engine. That's not a
total loss but it means lost jobs in the Atlanta area because they will be
moving all of the IT operations to Connecticut.

 

The current iSeries software was COBOL oriented and very difficult to
maintain in the relatively dynamic world of automobile insurance. It just
really need a major redo but not a trash can destination.

 

Jack Derham

Direct Systems, Inc.