RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

I still call the server OS Windows NT.

At some point, guys, only what's real matters.  Marketing is great for
creating hype among CIO's, but in the trenches we'll call it a shovel no
matter what remarkable advances they make in what they're calling it.

I5 has basic problems.   
IBM tried to position it as a db server, but the db subsystem is odd and
odbc connections were awful until recently.
IBM tried to position it as a J2EE server, but the value proposition for
running WAS on i5 is non-existent.  (Big $$$ for poor performance)
In a world where .NET and JAVA are the only real choices (if that's
true), i5 finds no place.

I like the i5, but it needs to stick to what it does well.  It's an
amazing platform that needs to just be itself rather than trying to be
things that it is most decidedly not.  Also, the premium that you pay
for the i5 has to be well-justified to IT professionals.  It think it's
justifiable, but I don't know that it's being justified well.

The pendulum will swing again.  Distributed systems are difficult to
implement and manage, and their hidden expenses and reliability problems
are legendary.  At some point, some opinion maker will find a snappy new
buzzwords for the big-iron way of doing things, and it will again become
popular for good reasons.  Hang in there, gang.





-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces+joe.hayes=fiserv.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces+joe.hayes=fiserv.com@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Al Mac
Sent: Friday, December 08, 2006 10:12 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

Do we have any idea how long (months, years, decades) that it will be
called System i, before IBM changes the name again?

No one knows about System i - yet it is the best platform on the 
planet. Why don't they know? Because we keep calling it an AS/400 - 
something from last century

I know of a HUGE number of people who refer to Windows ... whatever
version as plain Windows, just as lots more people refer to THE OS not
the OS and its version #.

Does anyone know of anyone using Windows XP but refers to it as Windows

95?

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