Random thoughts from COMMON

1.) Jon Paris getting married?  Did I really miss something?  If it is true
(guess it had to be it was in Thursday's Green Streak) congratulations to
Jon and Susan......man, talk about an 'programmed' marriage! :-)

2.) AS/400's being sold/labeled as Domino or Java servers.  The way I
understood it was that there would be some re-wrapping, etc. but it might
happen.  Instead of buying an AS/400 that can run Java or Domino you might
buy a server optimized/designed specifically to run the labeled
application.  Could be very interesting.  Creates some interesting
dilemna's.....

3.) Frank Soltis claimed that the AS/400 can run any AIX application today
without any modifications and that most UNIX applications fall into this
category.  However, it will look and feel like a UNIX application so IBM
encourages the vendor to make the app.  look like an AS/400 application.
He thinks they can essentially be UNIX and essentially eliminate 'porting'.
Along with this they think they can run most UNIX applications faster than
similar UNIX machines.....another interesting dilemna.  Similar issues
revolving around NT.......

4.) Supposedly, the lab has a working prototype of an AS/400 that is
slightly larger than a laptop.  The idea of an AS/400 workstation was
talked about quite a bit.  The issue from Rochester seems to be one of
finding a business case for it......a lot of people at COMMON seemed to be
for it.

5.) JAVA and RPG.  Came up a lot again.  Here's my spin on what was
discussed.  RPG will not go away.  IBM will continue to improve it.  JAVA
will not go away.  IBM will continue to improve - at rates faster than RPG.
JAVA is important in attracting new customers and vendors.  RPG shops
should consider making the transition slowly to the visual/JAVA world
unless they have a compelling reason to drop everything and make the jump
wholesale.  Having said that I am now ducking and getting out of the
way....To be honest I think this is a big issue in our shop.  I can't even
get anyone to consider moving to ILE so we continue to spit out OPM RPG
(25%) and COBOL (75%).  I'm not sure what is the right thing to do....

6.) DOMINO.  Hot topic.  The AS/400 is now the second most popular Domino
platform after NT.  AS/400 sales are more than the three UNIX flavors
combined.....

7.) The IPCS is going to hopefully become based on the Netfinity
motherboard to minimize the delay of new technology.......should see 2 and
4 ways soon.  Watch for more information.  Word was that 1 out of 4
AS/400's being sold have an IPCS and about half of those are running NT.

8.) Requirements seemed woefully weak overall.  Not very many and not many
juicy ones.  I'm not sure if this is good news or bad.  Good meaning things
are in good shape and IBM is doing the right thing, bad meaning we didn't
get much in on this opportunity to present our case to IBM....

I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot but it's my best after flying all day
yesterday.  Good COMMON (of course I always say that).

Mike


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