On 11/20/07, Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This is the part I don't buy. Just because it's flashy doesn't make it
better. It's only better when it runs mission critical systems reliably and
responds to changing business conditions.
I don't disagree with you here. There are a lot of idiots in the PC
world out there that don't know what they're doing - both admins (e.G.
paper MCSEs) and developers.
As i'm sure there are the same Idiots in the System i world - maybe
just less of them, or they don't frequent this list anymore. Or they
died of old age.
Building reliable software requires knowledge, much forethought, and
business knowledge - which i'll agree that many youngsters (me
included) lack.
Maybe you consider me to one of these "idiots in the PC world" - but
let me assure you that i'm at least trying to be a good Windows
administrator.
Distributed systems - like the common Windows infrastructure with
Servers and Clients, instead of the Server and Display of greenscreen
deployments, are inherently more complex. A single big system is
usually easier to administrate than multiple smaller systems.
There's nothing that will ever change that, though Windows is
definitively trying to improve the odds by supplying appropriate
administration tools - like Group Policies, and many other Active
Directory features, which make administrating large amounts machines
so much easier. Again, not as easy as a single system.
Right now, in most businesses the PC-based systems and kiddie languages need
to do little more than display data in pretty colors, and for that they're
relatively well suited. But when loads rise or complexity spikes, the
kiddie systems start to fall down.
You'll that one can do both. I mean, have pretty colors and stable software:
http://projectdream.org/~lb/diasnc.jpg
Our ERP Client
http://projectdream.org/~lb/osp2007.jpg
Our Office Integration package for our ERP software
This is a System i solution - with a graphical interface that works
well. But it's all home built, and it requires a lot of effort to
maintain.
Basically, Google is pushing GMail 2.0 down people's throats, and it's
painfully slow, buggy as all get out, and it freezes or crashes browsers.
A big company makes a mistake. That's nothing new, and you can
probably fill books with stuff like this. I'm using Google Enterprise
Apps Premium for my private mail, and i'm still running the old
version ;)
This happens all the time: people try to take inexpensive PC networks and
make them do something which they are not designed for: namely run robust
Proper PC networks aren't inexpensive. They are less expensive than
the System i. These are two different things.
Buying a 2000US$ server and running a Small Businesses ERP on it is a
stupid idea, But if you can choose between a 15000US$ System i or a
15000$ Windows (or Linux, for that matter) machine to run your
Java-based ERP on, you'll get a lot more performance out of the PC
way.
midrange.com
