Re: An odd thing

[Vern Hamberg <hambergv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris

At 06:20 AM 12/9/97 PDT, you wrote:
>I learned something odd the other day and I thought I'd ask if anyone here
>felt different than I do about it.
>
>A company I used to work for has re-evaluated their plans for future
>development of the software product they market. They called in a consulting
>firm and spent some time reviewing their requirements, future direction, and
>existing customer base. 
>
>They decided not to redevelop their package in Java as they expect that a
>large part of their customer base will still be on CISC boxes for several
>years. This part I disagree with, but I did understand (not that I was
>asked). I mean, even if _I_ think RISC boxes are pretty cheap that doesn't
>mean everyone will get budget to buy a new one right away.
>
>But they decided to use IBM's Visual Generator to redevelop all their AS/400
>based software to a client/server model using COBOL. I was very surprised by
>this choice. At first, I thought the guy telling me about it was joking. But
>he was serious, and he had called me to see if I knew anything about the
>account that might indicate some reason for this direction. 
>
>Now, the customer has no COBOL programmers on site. They do have a couple of
>RPG guys. They already have RPG and C both licensed on the AS/400. 
>
>I would think that having opted to not redevelop in Java in order to
>accomodate their existing customer base that RPG would have been a natural
>choice. ILE RPG, RPG IV, VisualAge RPG. Quite a bit of tools lying around to
>make use of RPG skill sets. 
>
>But, maybe this consulting firm (a national one) knows something I don't.
>Anybody got some idea what I am missing on this one?

You don't think this national firm is trying to get more work for itself,
do you?
You don't think they have some idle COBOL programmers around, do you?
You don't think this smells as bad as I think it does, do you?

:-(

Cheers

Vernon Hamberg
Systems Software Programmer
Old Republic National Title Insurance Company
400 Second Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55401
(612) 371-1111 x480


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