Re: Death of the AS/400 (was Death of the RPG Programmer, List Activity)

Phil, (and others),

Are you seeing SQL and VB going in and staying in?  Have these migrations 
to other platforms completing successfully? 

I ask because just the other day someone was telling of an NT warehouse 
solution in the 7-figures category that was thrown in the trash after 
almost 2 years of failed installation efforts.
_______________________
Booth Martin
Booth@MartinVT.com
http://www.MartinVT.com
_______________________




pike4@ix.netcom.com
Sent by: owner-consult400@midrange.com
06/14/2000 08:31 AM
Please respond to CONSULT400

 
        To:     CONSULT400@midrange.com
        cc: 
        Subject:        Re: Death of the AS/400 (was Death of the RPG 
Programmer, List Activity)

I agree with most of what you said. I do think there is still a lot of 
Full-time, although I'm starting to see salaries coming down. 
I think the reason is that new development is done on other platforms, 
where I work, there are several financial systems that are newly 
developed, (as this company aquires other smaller companies),typically on 
SQL Server w/ VB, and then there are interfaces to the AS/400. How long 
does it take to write an interface, 2-3 weeks at most?
Phil


> Folks,

I'm not even going to quote a pertinent piece here, as so many were right 
and 
so many more were wrong on this subject.  AS/400 consulting and perm work 
is 
in the toilet right now, period.  Don't espouse JAVA to me, I've _GOT_ 
JAVA 
experience but cannot find work there.  ILE?  Yeah, right.  RPG? 
Fuhgedaboutit.  There _IS_ little to no work to be had for AS/400 
professionals right now -- contract _OR_ perm.  I am forced to swallow my 
earlier words about consultants not saving enough money to get through the 

annual "January slowdown", because said slowdown has now lasted until 
June. 
I saved enough for this, but I certainly don't expect everyone else to do 
so. 
 There are folks out there, just like you and me, that are working the 
census 
right now in order to feed their families.  So much for the much 
ballyhooed 
"high tech career".

I (and most other industry analysts) figured that, with the dissolution of 

Y2K, that companies would be screaming for help to do the stuff that 
they'd 
put off for the past 2-5 years.  Perhaps the e-business trend would even 
further accelerate the latter -- WRONG.  Companies are still griping about 
an 
IT worker shortage, but it seems that they're only interested in _LOW 
PAID_ 
IT workers when it actually comes down to having to hire someone.  H1-B 
folks 
around here earn around $55K per year -- good money, but it won't get you 
a 
trailer within an hour's drive of the Research Triangle for housing. 
Forget 
owning a reasonably new car to navigate our complete lack of public 
transportation.

Sorry, but contracts _AND_ permanent employment on the AS/400 seem to be 
pretty much dead.  If it makes you feel any better, it appears that the 
other 
midrange platforms are suffering equal problems...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." -- John Wooden