Re: Overlay printing (was: iSeries revenue plummets)

midrange-nontech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 11/26/2007 01:00:09 PM:

date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:52:43 +0100
from: "Lukas Beeler" <lukas.beeler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: Overlay printing (was: iSeries revenue plummets)

On 11/26/07, MichaelQuigley@xxxxxxxxxx <MichaelQuigley@xxxxxxxxxx>

wrote:

Say what? What do you consider a modern printing infrastructure? I'm

not

One that works well, allows necessary customization by users, and does
not require unnecessary cost. i.E. it should be able to print nice
looking documents without too much effort.

What you want is something professional-grade with end-user maintenance. I
don't know of any systems that really do a good job of that on any
platform.

to which other architectures don't come close. Do you want some $250K

-

$1M printing system from another manufacturer? If you buy a System i

and

I'm working in the SMB Market - Model 515 and 525.

I feel for you. The systems from which we produce our output had a budget
closer to $30K-$40K. Adding IP Designer to that was a serious investment,
but it's given us the flexibility to do whatever we want. I can't
remember off-hand, but I looked at alternate solutions at a COMMON years
ago. I think there were some less expensive alternatives by 3rd-party
companies/ISVs. I just wanted to have the integration and support
provided by IBM. I've had problems and SupportLine has been great for
getting a solution. Back to the point, we bought it because we can do a
lot of other projects with it. We've gone to electronic checks. We're
going to be able to produce our Purchase Orders using it. There's a lot
more uses for it than its original purchase.

use what is provided (or available) with it, you can generate *VERY*
robust printouts. Yes, IP Designer could be considered a little

pricey,

Do you really want to tell our customers - which just spent 15'000 on
a System i instead of 5'000 on a PC server to spend ANOTHER 10'000
just for nice looking invoices?

So what are you using the printer driver for? To convert a MS-Word
document to an overlay? trying to do print emulation from the System i

to

The first one. It's the only WYSIWIG way to get nice looking invoices
that can be done by a normal user, not a programmer.

modern printing infrastructure. (BTW, that printer driver was

designed

for W2K. Does MS really support W2K anymore? I can think of a big

name

vendor in the printing business who has dropped support for it. If

you're

complaining something designed for a no-longer-supported OS isn't

modern,

So you're telling me that the infrastructure IBM provides for the
System i is outdated? Then why are we arguing? :)

Nope. I'm telling you you're using an out-dated way to accomplish the
task. I suppose I could still key my programming work on a teletype,
punch paper tape out of it, and then load that on our system for compile.
But I prefer to use an integrated development tool which checks my syntax,
gives me context sensitive help, et al. I want a professional tool to do
a professional job. MS-Word may be able to develop forms, but it's not
the ideal tool.

If you're printing a low volume, spending a couple thousand dollars on

an

Infoprint laser with an AFP/IPDS card will do the trick. For high

volume

You know, that is exactly the problem. Of course a printer with an
IPDS ROM or an ExcelliPrint front works much better than a plain PCL
printer. It adds additonal cost (750CHF for XCP, 1500CHF for the ROM).

You should check out some alternatives. HP Laserjets are pricey to get
IPDS capabilities. But Try Lexmark or Infoprint systems printers. They
get great results using IPDS for a much lower investment cost. Plus
they'll handle the PCL or Postscript printer streams just fine.

But that means additional cost, a lot, for not really much of a gain.
Windows based applications have nice looking printout on a 100CHF
printer.

But 100CHF printers are crap.

... I can think of some servers to which that evaluation could be applied
and they're not the System i. <grin>

...But a modern, PCL5/PCL6 capable in the
network should work together with the System i - without integration
problems, additional trouble, etc. pp. An IPDS ROM fixes that, but it
adds unnecessary cost, and the printout looks still bad.

It only looks bad because it comes from an outdated tool. Have you ever
really investigated the tools available to produce professional output?
(By tools for professional output, I don't mean MS-Word. I'm talking
about tools a professional in the printing industry would use--tools such
as IP Designer or the ISV equivalents.) The IPDS buys a lot more than
just printing. Look at the error-recovery, guaranteed print fidelity, et
al. Some of the horror stories I could tell trying to recover from a
printing error on a MS-Windows machine to a PC printer give me the
shivers. When we need to recover from an error on an IPDS printer, we
usually just put the printer back on-line, push in the paper tray or
whatever--- and the printing picks up where it left off.

printing, the printer will cost you more. And if that's the case,
spending a few thousand dollars for the software to set it up and

drive it

shouldn't be that big a concern.

Yeah, maybe in your big company which has 10 595 for 10 millions each
positioned around the globe, while spending 100k a week for toilet
paper. But our customer ERP projects average around 100k investment.

Let's see. We run everything off our one 720. We do have a couple
Laserjets to which we send our *AFPDS printouts. The CPU usage does jump,
but we really haven't seen much impact on response times while doing this.
Of course, since we were shooting for the cheap solution on these, we
aren't trying to print complex multi-color overlays, etc.

I think the problem is similar to how MS labels anything not MS as "not
modern." Hence, the System i doesn't offer a "modern printing
infrastructure." Any system can bring frustrations. I don't throw out
MS-Windows, just because I get frustrated by the problems it presents.
Don't throw out the System i as not having a "modern printing
infrastructure" just because you have customers who would be lost trying
to use a tool like IP Designer anyway. Check out the alternative AFP
tools from ISVs, maybe there's a less expensive tool. As for printers,
Lexmark and Infoprint Solutions offer AFP capable printers that aren't
much more than a Laserjet.