RE: alternative to WebFacing

All who replied,

Sorry I am so late getting back to you all.  (I'm afraid I thought I'd
already sent a post, on another subject, where I said I was going to be out
of town over the weekend...  Sheesh.)

I've read over the posts on this thread a few times, and they're **very
interesting**.  Just wanted to make a few quick comments before I start
analyzing the posts.

I don't have a whole lot of in-depth knowledge of the various alternatives
to WebFacing, like Seagull, Jacada, the new Cool:2E product, etc.  But from
what I recall from glancing at some of them 6 months ago, they all seem to
have two things in common:  you need to learn new tools, and a hefty price
tag.  These are good solutions, that obviously fill a need.  But I, like
James Kilgore, would sure like to know some hard numbers for the costs of
these solutions.

I'm not suggesting that good, solid iSeries ISV's should get their markets
taken away from them by OSS or the iNation.  (Nathan pointed out that IBM
could do that, if they wanted to.)  I'm just suggesting that there is a
market segment that these vendors can't service at the prices I've heard of.

It seems that Jim Franz identified this market segment in his original post.
The market for a cheap, effective, reliable solution that could run on
cheap, effective, reliable hardware (i.e. a 400; with little to no
interactive feature).

Maybe in Jim's particular case a commercial solution would be a better fit.
In other cases, another solution would be a better fit.

What I'm wondering is whether there's enough interest in the 400 Community
to try to develop an Open Source solution to this problem?  It appears to be
techically feasible, but could it actually be completed?  If so, who would
support it?  Would the iNation back this kind of OSS development, and
provide on-going support?

I did see, recently, an independent white paper on the Jacada product.  The
first item on the evaluation checklist was "vendor prospectus".  How healthy
is the vendor who's going to have to support the development tool over the
life of the product.  Personally, I don't see OSS flourishing in the 400
Community until that same question can be answered satisfactorily.  I still
think the iNation could do that, but I'm not sure how to go about it.  The
only person who's been identified on the Freedom Council is Neil, and Don is
the only other person I've heard of who's on it.  So I guess I'm asking them
what their opinion is, or if anyone knows of a better way to find out.

Might have some more specific thoughts in a follow-up, tonight or tomorrow.


jt



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
[mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Jim Franz
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 7:38 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com; IGNITE400 MEMBERS LIST
Subject: alternative to WebFacing


is there an alternative to IBMs WebFacing for a system too
small to run WebSphere? Prefer without the run-time license
of like Seagull. Something reliable?
jim


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