Re: 1998 Predictions -- MIDRANGE-L

Dean,

Love ya!  I've done some snipping and adding my 2 cents...BTW my daughter got me
some GREAT Ethiopian beans which I've slammed into the obligatory occupational 
IV
and full valved the sucker!  Gotta love that java. ;-)

DAsmussen wrote:

> Hello All!
>
> As usual, these predictions are meant to be fun rather than prescient, so
> don't stake your portfolio on them (regardless of the outcome of last year's
> flock)!
>
> 1.  AS/400 sales will remain flat, due in equal parts to most companys' focus
> on the Y2K issue rather than technology enhancements, and IBM's _IDIOTIC_
> pricing decision for V4 which has alienated the group that would have been
> "first in line" with JAVA solutions for the AS/400.

Like I said, gotta love that java...I'm not sure that 1998 will see a total flat
line.  There are still too many in denial. It may slow down due to some 
hauntings
but IMHO the true hardware flatten will occur in 1999 when their face is pressed
REAL HARD against the reality checks.  Say that a company has a really good
customer who they gave 120 day terms to books a sale in Sept. 1999 and shows up 
on
credit hold for being 100 years delinquent.  (And the poor IS manager is going 
to
be sitting there going: "Remember when...." and the big guy is going to say "I
don't care about then, I want this fixed NOW!!"..so much for Labor Day weekend
with the family)

> 2.  Network station sales will remain flat as well, precluding an announcement
> from IBM that allows users to run PC-based applications without the expensive
> NT server requirements.  The hardware has fallen in price, so where is the
> software?

NC's will sell to the larger companies that want to control costs and 
availability
to goofing off on a PC.  AFAIK NT Server is not a requirement today. Oh, you 
said
PC-based applications, but you must have meant Win doze based. I stand 
corrected.
:)Even the small companies I've worked with we reformat any PC hard drives and
partition it to only hold the minimum for a connection.  If someone is doing
company related work, it's on a shared (secured by group) server or there is no
space left on a user machine to store it.  If someone wants to do resumes/games,
go home and do it.  Remember, IBM's real customers have thousands, tens of
thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of users.  A site with only 
hundreds
of users they leave up to the "partners" to handle.


> 3.  Lou G will resign as head of IBM, seeking "new opportunities".  Real
> reason?  He's made all of the management changes he can at IBM, and will leave
> to allow the company to "sink or swim" based upon its own technology and a new
> leader that will pursue that focus.

There always is the unspoken third outcome...swim poorly...not sinking, no gold
medals..plain vanilla.

>
>
> 4.  "Native Notes" will fail at inception, because nobody has time to
> implement it _AND_ Y2K compliant software.  Should have come out with it last
> year...

Unless it's marketed as a "solution". But I think you're right.

> 5.  IBM will announce several hardware platforms to "fill the gaps" in its
> current product lines, most of which will be met with a "big yawn" due to the
> above stated pre-occupations with Y2K over hardware.

Nitch solutions will still find their place.  If a software products fills a
company's needs it's real nice to have hardware with a robust Y2K compliant OS 
to
run it on. Holey windows Batman!

> 6.  JAVA/400 will gain a real foothold over other languages/400 because
> vendors that are already Y2K compliant will focus their efforts there.
> Vendors that were averse to converting their software to C++ for the (proper)
> reason that UNIX wasn't as "OPEN" as most would have you believe will begin to
> port to JAVA.

That works for the UNIX folks trying to marry up, but for the rest of us that
already have Y2K compliant RPG/400 code we're looking at broadening a customer
base to smaller users (read as more support calls, higher cost, lower margins,
etc.) so from a purely business view point would you rather have a single
installation of 200 users of RPG or 10 installations of 20 users of changing 
JAVA,
or 40 installations of 5 users of changing JAVA? (I think the keyword here is
"changing") How many sales per year do you need for the 200 user shop vs the 5
user shop at competitive prices to break even and what's your cost to support 
that
number of installations?  For us, at this time, JAVA is an intellectual hobby 
and
not a livelihood.  It's sort of like being in school to learn it, we even try to
replicate existing applications to find the holes.  But for front line
applications it's not ready for prime time.  It is good for system management
software and application development software. Ya see, we don't sell software to
programmers, we sell to companies that need a Payroll application.  In time we
believe that JAVA might (repeat might) do what UNIX/C was meant to, but we're 
not
about to throw another $x,000,000 into it until we have that warm and fuzzy
feeling.

> 7.  The US Justice Department will _FINALLY_ deliver Microsoft its come-
> uppance -- have you _seen_ the c###, uh stuff, that MS tried to pull?

The last I heard, a judge got on a PC, moused over to the IE icon, pressed right
(how apropos) button, selected "delete", got "are you sure", replied "yes", and
concluded: Removal of IE is not as difficult as M$ argued.  The wheels do grind
slowly but they sure do grind. :)  :( but then again, the last judge that said
that got replaced.)  BTW, what's the going price for a judge now a days? =:-o

>
>
> 8.  OS/2 will finally bite the dust, although undeservedly.  IBM's
> incompetence, rather than OS/2's relative value, will finish it off.  The
> revenue stream is just too small for the effort required by the manufacturer
> to "keep it current".

That may very well be true stateside.  The Euro community has AFAIK slam dunked 
M$
for OS/2 in 1996.  At least that's the last I heard when I was a hot and heavy
OS/2 bigot.

>
>
> 9.  Y2K will have all of us busy for the next four years, at least.

True.  I'll we've received from our clients is a smiling confidence that they 
will
be taken care of in the future as they have in the past, change topic, what's on
the plate for today.  The ball just gets lobed back to our side of the court.  
The
individuals have today to worry about, it's our job to worry about today and
tomorrow.

>
>
> 10.  As with last year, we'll all meet here next year and be equally as wrong.
> If we meet last year's averages, that wouldn't be a bad thing, would it?
>

Well just between you, me and the fence post last year was great.  Next year 
will
be better, and 1999 will be better yet. Why?  Because of a line from a movie I
heard a long, long time ago: "Lack of planning on your part does not consitute 
an
emergancy on my part."  The same one's who have denied reality, budgets and man
power requests today are going to do some real hard back peddaling tomorrow.  
Just
make sure that all of your requests are in writting and cc'ed up the line, 
'cause
when they are in the corner they just might get ugly! ;-)

Peace and a joyous holiday season to all.


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