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  3. March 2006

Re: HASB mulls new computer system

Thanks Steve.
We fight the Microsoft battle all the time. And I can see the TCO debate looming on the horizon. Frankly, over the years, I've seen plenty of customers leave the fold as they were treated badly by NCS and Pearson and they mostly went to multi-server solutions. Some of them horrible. If you talk to the folks who run the shops that were running the AS/400 and iSeries, they generally indicate that systems operations-wise, things got worse, however the users loved the stuff (when it was running). Users drive the system, not operations. Without a GUI replacement, which, again, we are working on, we really have a tough battle to fight. I hope we can complete this new Open Source School Admin app by the end of next year. It will rock and it will sell iSeries (System i's). Meanwhile, we see existing customers bail because we can't compete with the slick looking applications they are being pitched.
I am not sure but I think the Sungard/Pentamation stuff is a web services oriented package, they don't necessarily install at the customer site. It is .NET as far as I can tell and uses MSSQL server. 
Pete


A lot of good info Pete.

As I read your posts the customer wants an application which is access
thru the browser.  Putting MSFT to the side, the xSeries or p5 based
solution has an IBM starting price of $5K to $10K.  For similar
performance on the i5, that is 3000 CPW, the starting price is $22K+. Why pay the extra $15K? For green screen compatibility that the 
customer can do without?

The villain here is not the uninformed customer.  It is IBM pricing of the i5.

http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh032706-story01.html

"... Like many people in the OS/400 community, if I have an argument
at all, it is almost never with IBM's Rochester labs, ....., but
rather with IBM's Somers offices, where the marketing and sales plans
are hatched and where the pricing and packaging decisions are made.
... Getting Somers to listen is hard, since the marketeers aim to make
as much money in the shortest term with the least possible amount
effort. They do this because that's what marketeers at public
companies do. ..."

-Steve

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