Re: Moving from Green screen app to GUI because of push back

Nathan,

 You're only partially correct.  The application would need to be rewritten, to some degree.  But, the additional cost of the add-on product plus the additional development and testing overhead made it too expensive an endeavor to undertake, from the clients' perspective.

  I went through this at several medium to small clients.  Had IBM included and integrated this functionality into the OS I would have created some standalone mini applications, or a parallel function to an existing application, and let them get used to having *their* data displayed in a real GUI, with additional functionality.

 There is no way that they would shell out for an expensive tool (plus the yearly maintenance!) just to try it out to see if they want to go in that direction.  There are other details in play, but that was a big part of the decision.

 The fact that we can get a GUI to display does not mean that this is an inherently a GUI OS.  It's not.  IMHO, until IBM decides that it's worthwhile investing in creating a fully integrated, modern interface as part of the OS, this box will be perceived as old and dated.  That's a shame, because it's a real workhorse with many innovations and capabilities.

 -mark