Free OS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

All the talk about WebFacing or Webshpere studio having a open source
equivalent is interesting. But lately I've been thinking about the year
2003. I think IBM plans on making 2003 the last year of the
System/38/AS/400/iSeries product line, so I'm thinking how best to
manage this situation from a career perspective.
It seems to me that IBM is pushing all of use toward non OS/400
platforms. For some reason they feel that a relatively good rogue
operating system like Linux is going to generate more money for them
than OS/400. Perhaps it will, but I think it's unlikely. Will be move
our general purpose business applications to Linux running on an
expensive IBM platform when I can get a cheap piece of crap that works
good enough from CompUSA, DELL, or other? Probably not.
Perhaps IBM thinks that AIX and RS/6000 (I don't remember which letter
eServer it is, xSeries? pSeries? Whatever) is where we will move our
general purpose business applications? Unlikely.
Maybe we'll just move all that COBOL, RPG and other code up to the
Mainframe? Illogical.
The current technology of the day seems to be Linux and HTTP Server
application enablement. Okay, so when that passes in a year or two, then
what? Two years ago it was Java. Today, you'd be hard pressed to find a
working Java application running in a business environment. Yet there
are dozens of people at JAVA for AS/400 Programmer seminars all over the
country. Where are these people going after the seminar's are over?
Well, (and I'm guessing here) I'm suppose a few got it, and are using it
for something. A few others just didn't get it. The rest are probably
moving off the AS/400 so they don't have to deal with an unstable
direction from IBM. 
Sure the AS/400 is still the best platform for general purpose business
applications, period. But it still doesn't have a Graphical User
Interface, regardless of how much Marketing BS IBM prints to out and out
lie about it having a graphical interface. It does not. It is a
character-mode only, textual interface, based on the 5250 data stream
from the mid 1970s. It is not graphical. (And don't give me that OpsNav
crap. Sure it is a GUI-ized application, but can your Order Entry apps
be graphical, and have that graphical interface be controlled from your
high-level languages? Can you create a button on the fly in RPG and put
it into a window? Is that interface "native"? No.) <GUI RANT OFF>
If IBM can't sell the AS/400 to new customers, it will die when we, the
current customer set, decide it has had enough. Or, IBM may kill it off
in favor of offering less expensive products. Remember, IBM definition
of "less expensive" is less expensive to IBM, not to the customer. 
If IBM were smart the would do a few things to make money.
1) Make OS/400 Open Source. Why screw with Linux and try to get OS/400
people to move to it, when they could do much better with OS/400 in the
same space. Hell the thing is now mostly written in C++, and it is a
PowerPC CPU operating system. Open it up, let Rochester sell tools for
adding on to it and be done with it. Okay, I'd rather have a $5000
version of OS/400 without source that IBM Rochester supported than a
free version with source. But that's just me.
2) Fire the marketing team; yes I mean the new one. They don't get it.
Branding group of systems into eServer is cause all product lines to
loose their identity. They are not cars, which are all pretty much the
same anyway, they are very different products that fill very different
needs. Now, to support the iSeries, I would say that it can be the best
web server out there, and since its already the best application
platform out there what is it IBM doesn't understand?
3) Fire the marketing team. If they didn't do it right by now, they
probably will have to fire whom ever they bring in, so let's just get it
done with.
4) Realize that you have at least 3 very different products. Who the
F... cares if iSeries sells more than xSeries or some other line.
Jealousy is not very business-like. 
A good friend of mine now retired from IBM and working on Microsoft
applications with his son in Rochester Minnesota, once told me that the
three things that run IBM were pompousness, arrogance, and jealousy.  
I don't see any of these traits in Buell Duncan. I like him. I just hope
Buell is not someone IBM put in there to distract us AS/400 bigots while
IBM slowly terminates the assembly line.
If things don't change, the only career advice I would off all of you...
learn C language syntax. Meaning, all new stuff is based on the C
language, so you need to be able to read it before you can learn it.
Knowing how the syntax of the C language is extremely important to your
career.
If IBM wakes up, you'll be better positioned to work with the web stuff,
HTML, XML, C#, JavaScript or whatever. If the don't you'll have a
portable skill to Microsoft or Linux or whatever.
Bob Cozzi
Free RPG IV advice at www.rpgiv.com
cozzi@rpgiv.com


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