RE: J. D. Edwards Article that I felt was pertinent

[Wynn Osborne <wynn@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Whatever.

All I know is the product (OneWorld) leaves MUCH TO BE DESIRED.

I claim no prior experience with so-called "client-server" technology, but
I must say this: If OneWorld is representative of where the technology
currently stands, how in God's name did it make it this far?

I ask, is it better to have 2048 characters of "green screen" information
at your disposal, 24 x 7 with 99.5% confidence? Or is it better to have ???
pixels (I've forgotten the number) of information at your disposal, ?? x 7,
??% confidence?

I don't know the answer, but the fact that I'm not so sure means that
client-server hasn't won me over yet.


At 06:46 PM 7/19/00 -0400, you wrote:
> At 10:14 AM 7/19/00 -0600, you wrote:
> 
> Richard,
> 
> I think the references were limited to the AS/400 as a platform.
> 
> Al
> 
> 
> Al:
> 
> Is it allowed to pick nits with this article?
> 
>    
> 
>     
> 
> """"
> 
>      
> 
>    
> 
>    I would agree with that but I would invite you to read between the
lines. 
> 
> ""    
> 
>       
> 
> Richard Jackson
> mailto:richardjackson@richardjackson.net
> http://www.richardjacksonltd.com
> Voice: 1 (303) 808-8058
>   1 (303) 663-4325 
>>  -----Original Message----- From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
>>[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Al Barsa, Jr. Sent:
>>Wednesday, July 19, 2000 8:09 AM To: midrange-L@midrange.com Subject: J.
>>D. Edwards Article that I felt was pertinent
>> 
>>  Hi,
>> 
>>  My apologies if you get this e-mail multiple times, but I think it's
>>important, so I have sent it to midrange-l, as well as bcc:ing several
>>other people to whom I feel it is relevant.
>> 
>>  I am not normally in the habit of quoting articles that I get from
>>other sources, but I found this in my e-mail the day before yesterday,
>>and I felt that it was pertinent.
>> 
>>  It shows how JDE customers are pushing JDE to extend the life of the
>>World product (which is, as I understand it, completely green screen) as
>>opposed to their One-World product (which as I understand it is totally
GUI).
>> 
>>    
>> 
>>  My read into this is that this is a further illustration as to the
>>failure of client/server computing to deliver, although JDE certainly
>>could have a different perspective.
>> 
>>  This is a good piece of journalism written by Timothy Prickett Morgan,
>>MMU's Editor.
>> 
>>    ""  I guess that's one of the reasons that I write for News/400 today.)
>> 
>>  Al
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>          Monday Morning AS/400 Update 07/17/00
>> 
>>  A Midrange Computing Publication (http://www.midrangecomputing.com)
>>Timothy Prickett Morgan, Editor
>>____________________________________________________________
>> 
>>  J.D. Edwards Extends WorldSoftware's Life Another Three Years
>> 
>>  Being the biggest AS/400 software house in the world can be  &  Company
>>has a very large and loyal customer base with its  WorldSoftware suite of
>>RPG enterprise resource planning  (ERP) applications. The WorldSoftware
>>installed base, which  is close to 4,000 unique customers worldwide,
>>generates  hundreds of millions of dollars of software, services, and 
>>support revenues a year for JDE; it has accounted for  several billion
>>dollars in revenues over the course of  JDE's history, which extends back
>>to the System/38 days. On  the other hand, JDE has been peddling its
>>OneWorld suite  for AS/400, UNIX, and Windows NT servers for the past
>>three  years, and it has been trying to coerce that WorldSoftware  base
>>to move to OneWorld. 
>> 
>>  By and large, even though OneWorld has included many  features and
>>interfaces to third-party supply chain  management (SCM), customer
>>relationship management (CRM),  data warehousing, and e-business
>>applications,  WorldSoftware customers have been content to stay with the
>> RPG applications they know and understand and have avoided  moving to
>>CASE-tool-generated OneWorld programs, which,  according to JDE
>>implementers, do not offer the same  performance that the WorldSoftware
>>product does. (That's  the nature of hand-tuned vs. CASE-tool coding, and
>>is not a  slam against JDE in the slightest.) 
>> 
>>  Several months ago, according to my sources within JDE, the  company
>>brought in dozens of WorldSoftware customers to  talk about the future of
>>the WorldSoftware product line,  which is set to expire on February 28,
>>2002. Having  survived the Y2K transition and having been under the gun
>>to  convert themselves into e-businesses, JDE's WorldSoftware  customers
>>said point blank that what they really wanted was  for JDE to extend the
>>life of WorldSoftware and put some  programmers to work on bringing some
>>of the functionality  in the OneWorld suite over to WorldSoftware. In
>>establishing the WorldSoftware Organization, a separate  division within
>>JDE, the company is going to do exactly  what customers are asking.
>>Specifically, JDE has agreed to  support the WorldSoftware suite until
>>February 28, 2005.  (The release support lasts through February so
>>companies  can get W2 forms out on the old releases.) That's another 
>>three years for those 4,000 customers to mull over their  options. In
>>addition, JDE has put 50 programmers on the job  of building interfaces
>>to WorldSoftware that allow it to  link to Siebel System's CRM suite,
>>Ariba's e-commerce suite,  and JDE's own Active Supply Chain SCM suite
>>(which JDE got  by virtue of its acquisition of Numetrix last year). 
>> 
>>  Active Supply Chain is actually a UNIX suite developed in  IBM's AIX,
>>and for OneWorld customers it is actually  supported on the AS/400
>>through the Portable Applications  Solutions Environment (PASE) built
>>into OS/400 V4R4 and  V4R5. While JDE could have dropped it in alongside 
>>WorldSoftware from the get-go, WorldSoftware has not been a  top
>>priority, much less an equal priority, to OneWorld  until now. 
>> 
>>  My sources say that the exact delivery schedule for Active  Supply
>>Chain links for WorldSoftware is not yet set, but it  is not a software
>>porting issue so much as a service and  support issue; it is going to
>>take some time to build the  interfaces, to be sure, but it will also
>>take time to get a  support organization that is acquainted with both
>>products  to help customers use it. Ditto for Siebel and Ariba  products
>>and for IBM's WebSphere StoreFront (formerly known  as Net.Commerce).
>> 
>>  As things now stand, JDE has about 900 developers in total,  but many
>>of them work on documentation and other projects.  Compared to that
>>number, 50 programmers for the  WorldSoftware organization may not sound
>>like a big number,  but those 50 programmers have the code base from the
>>AS/400  implementation of OneWorld to work from, which cuts down on  the
>>resources necessary to build interfaces to third-party  products. JDE
>>also has plans to expand the development  roster in the coming months,
>>although exactly how many  programmers the unit will ultimately have is
>>unclear. Most  significantly, close to 300 of the dedicated 560 tech-
>>support staff at JDE are already on the WorldSoftware  product, and that
>>ratio is apparently not going to change  as the company adds customers.
>>JDE is very keen on making  those 4,000 customers happy, even if they do
>>require a lot  less hand-holding on average than the 2,000 OneWorld 
>>customers that JDE has worldwide.
>> 
>>  IBM is, as you may imagine, thrilled by this announcement  from JDE.
>>There are a couple of reasons for this. For one,  JDE still sells some
>>new WorldSoftware licenses every year-- WorldSoftware is a big hit in the
>>Asia/Pacific region  lately--and each one of those results in an AS/400
>>sale.  Moreover, JDE's products for the AS/400 are probably the  most
>>logical alternative for AS/400 shops that want to move  from System
>>Software Associates' Business Planning and  Control System (BPCS) ERP
>>suite to another suite. Earlier  in the year, after years of struggle and
>>decline, SSA was  bought by Gores Technology Group, a Los Angeles company
>> that specialized in buying pieces of companies spun out as  part of
>>mergers and acquisitions. SSA has some 6,500  customers worldwide, and
>>while Gores is keen on keeping  those customers, some are going to jump
>>ship. Perhaps most  significantly, with the three-year extension on 
>>WorldSoftware's life, IBM, JDE, and their respective  partners may
>>actually start promoting the RPG version,  which has been updated with
>>graphical interfaces using  Seagull Software's JWalk Java GUI tool.
>>Although the  anecdotal evidence suggests that it is rare that AS/400-
>>based WorldSoftware customers change platform when they  migrate to
>>OneWorld, the sales of AS/400s to new OneWorld  customers not coming from
>>WorldSoftware have been low, and  increasingly customers opt for
>>non-AS/400 platforms. 
>> 
>>  In the first quarter of 2000, say my sources at JDE, the AS/400 
>>supported less than half of the revenue that JDE  brought in on new
>>shipments of ERP suites, while UNIX and NT  got more than half. My best
>>guess is that the actual ratio-- which JDE will not divulge--is 40
>>percent on AS/400 (with  almost all of it being for OneWorld), 60 percent
>>on UNIX  and NT. If WorldSoftware sales pick up, the AS/400 could  hold
>>steady at 40 percent of JDE's sales, rather than  decline to 25 or 30
>>percent as I reckon it would have in the  absence of a revitalized
>>WorldSoftware base. I would also  venture that UNIX would get about 30
>>percent and that  Windows NT/2K, by virtue of the increasing emphasis on 
>>smaller enterprises in the ERP market, would have got about  40 to 45
>>percent of the market. But now that WorldSoftware  will continue to be a
>>viable product and IBM has powerful  Model 270 Pulsar servers at
>>attractive prices, maybe the AS/400  can make up for some lost ground.
>> 
>>  IBM and JDE are right now putting together some joint  marketing
>>campaigns to bring this message to the  WorldSoftware base and to
>>potential JDE customers who might  prefer WorldSoftware over OneWorld for
>>the next few years.  They will also bring home the message that JDE has
>>been  sending out since its user group meeting last month, which  is that
>>the company is cool with the idea of the  coexistence of WorldSoftware
>>and OneWorld on AS/400s.
>> 
>>  Only time will tell what effect JDE's new stance on  WorldSoftware will
>>have on the AS/400 market. No matter  what, JDE is doing right by its
>>AS/400 customers and IBM's  AS/400 business will benefit from that. This
>>sure beats  killing off WorldSoftware--unless you happen to make your 
>>living migrating WorldSoftware customers to OneWorld, that is.
>
> 
>  Story ends here.
> 
>    I have not clicked on the link, but be their guest.
> 
>  >I understand that you would like to use a story from the most recent
>issue  >of Monday Morning AS/400 Update. If you would like to merely
>excerpt the  >story, please feel free to do so. If you are going to do
>that, we ask that  >you do reference the publication name in full, note
>that it is published by  >Midrange Computing, and provide a link back to
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>>http://www.midrangecomputing.com/mmu/currentissue1.cfm?20000717.)  >  >If
>you would like to use the story in full, please let me know. We have a 
>>short permission for we will need to you to fill out.
>
> 
> 
> 
>  Al
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
>  Al Barsa, Jr. - Account for Midrange-L Barsa Consulting, LLC.   > 390
> 
>  Phone:          914-251-1234 Fax:            914-251-9406
>http://www.barsaconsulting.com http://www.taatool.com  
>
> 
> 
> +--------------------------------------------------+ | Please do not send
>private mail to this address. |          |
>+--------------------------------------------------+ 
> Al Barsa, Jr. - Account for Midrange-L Barsa Consulting, LLC.   > 390 
> Phone:          914-251-1234 Fax:            914-251-9406
>http://www.barsaconsulting.com http://www.taatool.com  

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