I talk to IBM a lot about naming, GUI, modernization, etc. Yes, I pound on
a lot of people. You don't see any of that in this forum.
This is really what I was fishing for and poised my question in a
round-about-way. I believe the i5 is a great machine with great native
languages and I am all for taking it to the next level. But I want to be
able to offer value that doesn't cost an arm and a leg because of software
requirements. I believe I am preaching to the choir when I say to you that
Websphere App Server and supporting technologies just aren't the answer for
many of the RPG shops out there. So when I go beating _my_ i5 drum I want
to be able to have some solid technologies coupled with a modern "look and
feel" that can sell itself.
Elaine Lennox and another guy (sorry guy, I forgot your name :-) put
together a short video declaring the benefits of a single i5 over a farm of
Windows servers. Made perfect sense to me even though I don't use all the
technologies they are talking about (i.e. IP Telephony, Lotus products). It
was layman's marketing and it is what I have been waiting to hear. I
struggle with how to shake the old coat and put on the new because I don't
know what I am talking about when I venture into hardware and the like. It
would be great to have a spec sheet comparison for how to do xyz on your i5
vs. Windows which I believe Elaine started doing in a very simple fashion.
Anyways, I do appreciate what you are doing, I just get lost in your battles
to get us to call it something other than what we know it by vs. discussing
the meat and bones behind the scenes that can offer a business value.
Changing AS/400 to AS/400e to iSeries to System i5 doesn't gain me anything
as an existing business, but the fact that I can run Linux on the same
machine and scale it to meet my needs vs. buy another machine with another
power supply, now that is some meat and potatoes!
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[
mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Trevor Perry
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 11:12 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Trevor on AS/400 vs. System i was->RE: MSFT video demos
HostIntegration Server
Aaron,
While I beat on the brand drum in this forum (ok - a lot), there is work I
put in other areas. I speak on modernization a lot. My session called "How
to be an IT Survivor" is also a smack in the face for a lot of green
programmers. I work on refacing and modernizing applications where the users
no longer know what hardware is running the application. I talk to IBM a lot
about naming, GUI, modernization, etc. Yes, I pound on a lot of people. You
don't see any of that in this forum.
FWIW, IBM already has a GUI or two for i. I choose to use other solutions,
and get better results. Changing the GUI is like using the right name - it
is just ONE of many things we MUST do. Some of it is about perception, and
some of it is about having modern applications on our platform.
I still maintain that a small thing as the community calling it by the right
name will go a long way to maintaining the platform for our future. But it
is not my only gig.
Trevor
midrange.com
