Re: RDp SWMA

You had a window where you could upgrade for a reduced cost. That
window is gone. Now you will have to pay the full $795 for a seat one
time then you're back to your normal SWMA.

Should SWMA entitle customers to both bug fixes and new functionality of
IBM software, even if the software functionality is re-badged?

There may have been a window, but management at my current firm is
reluctant to spend additional money on what it considers a "legacy"
platform.

May be forced to purchase licenses as part of an upgrade to i 7.1 to
maintain support because there's no way they'll be able to re-platform
before i 5.4 goes out of service.

Perhaps IBM should have charged first like they did with OAR?

IMO, a mistake they've since rectified. Not sure how I'd use OAR, but I'm
glad IBM has changed its position for the sake of the vendors who can
provide products that make use of it.

The problem with charging for WDSC is that even with it free, not a lot of
people used it. And if you remember the early years of WDSC, nobody
would have paid for it anyway. Certainly not green screen shops.

Certainly not the other developers at my shop, in spite of my
evangilzation.

Even I'm a recent convert- spent 2001-2007 away from the i in UNIX land,
and didn't get comfortable with WDSC until late 2009.

So that wouldn't have worked. Maybe they could have done the WebSphere
thing: give it away free, then charge for it, then give away the Express
version. No, people would still be screaming bloody murder. Or they
could continue to give it away for free, I guess. But that's not a very
workable revenue model.

Been around long enough to have been witnessed the VisualAge => Eclipse
transformation, too.

IBM has been wrestling with how to profitably provide developer tools for a
long time, and it hasn't always been pleasant.

I don't know what they could have done.


Could've allocated RDi entitlements based on processor group like they did
for the compilers.

Or included RDi seats as one of the items to spend the ADTS entitlement
allocation on.

Doesn't make much difference- it is what it is.

And as it stands, I'll have to make do with WDSc v7 until RDp provides some
needed additional function