Re: Overlay printing (was: iSeries revenue plummets)

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

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.

No, the target isn't professionell grade, it's "decent, usuable". I
don't expect perfect results, i expect them to be usuable. Back in the
Black & White times, the AFP Printer and Word variant was good enough
- no, it wasn't perfect, yes, there are many better ways to solve
this, but it was working. And suddenly when switching to color, there
no longer was an option.

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,

30k-40k for an output solution is different than 100k for a whole ERP
solution, where you spend maybe 5-10k on output

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

The problem with most 3rd party software for the System i is that, due
to the very small marketshare, the software is not internationalized,
i.E. not available in German. This is a killer. We can't sell a
software that is not in German, unless we are only going to use it
internally by technicians (like the tiff2afp hack).

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System i is outdated?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.

Maybe, but it was the only COST-EFFECTIVE way of doing so.

You know, the System is expensive enough as it is, with it's 3000 CHF
disk drives and so on.

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.

Actually, we've been switching from the Lexmark/Infoprint/IBM Printers
with IPDS ROMs to HP printers with an ExcelliPrint IPDS front because
of cost issues. An IPDS ROM is 1500 CHF, an ExcelliPrint license 750
CHF. Plus, Lexmark/IBM have awful delivery times, and do not offer low
cost printers with an IPDS option.

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>

Yeah, but the customer doesn't care much about that.

You can get a baseline Windows Server for 2k. You can get a baseline
System i for 15k. You can get a decent Windows Server for 10k, and for
a decent System i you'll need around 30-50k.

This fact allone makes the System i more difficult to sell, but
luckily we have a very good product.

It only looks bad because it comes from an outdated tool. Have you ever
really investigated the tools available to produce professional output?

Yes, i did. Most of them failed the most basicpreliminary evaluation
of cost & internationalization. Not more than 1000CHF. Available in
German.

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.

Yeah, so does any decent PC printer. No, not the 50 CHF model from a
supermarket. But i'm not talking about those.