Re: AS/400 -- MIDRANGE-L

William,

You can add my name to the list of people who will probably vote to scrap the 
AS400
when we buy our next machine sometime during the coming months, and it will be 
largely
because of that governor.  For people who have a hard time understanding why, 
I'll
offer this analogy.

Rush hour traffic on the beltway around Atlanta averages 45 mph during the work 
week.
My Chrylser Neon could handle that just fine, but once a month I try to squeeze 
in a
trip down to Key West.  Since my business in Atlanta is getting busier and 
busier the
window for my trip is getting smaller and smaller.  That's why I went out and 
bought a
Dodge Viper.  The dealer said it could deal with the slow beltway traffic just 
find and
then never drop below a 150 when I wanted to zip down to Key West.  Well, one 
day I got
on the beltway and there was almost no traffic since it was a government 
holiday.  I
stepped on the pedal and couldn't get it past 45.  All of the other cars on the 
beltway
were zipping past me in their PC cars.  That's because the dealer had neglected 
to
emphasize that although my new viper could easily go faster than 150, it could 
only do
that once a month.  They'd put a governor on it to make sure of that.  The PC 
cars
didn't have any such constraint.  They could go as fast as they wanted whenever 
they
wanted without their car manufacturers putting any artificial limits on them.  
Next
time I'm getting a PC car.

To translate, the trip around the beltway is my daily interactive load, the 
trip to Key
West is my heavy batch-oriented monthend processing.  I had to buy more 
horsepower to
get the monthend process to finish in time.  It wasn't made obvious to me that 
during
the rest of the month that extra horsepower (80% of the CPU) would have to sit 
idle
because I wasn't going to use it the way IBM wanted me to.  In the past I'd 
always been
able to allocate the processing power however I wanted to.  So while in the 
past I
might have looked stupid to the PC world for staying loyal to RPG and the 
AS400, this
is the first time I've ever looked stupid to myself for doing so.  Thus, 
another RPGer
becomes a non-RPGer, and the loyal user base shrinks by one thanks to CFINT.


William A Pack wrote:

>         The AS/400 will eventually die or be absorbed by some UNIX clone 
>system not
> yet in place.  Linux is a stop gap for IBM, a chance to get service dollars
> from a free UNIX variant.  IBM is really interested in NT, since they make a
> killing servicing it.  I wonder why I have spent my time working in the 400
> segment when the PC cowboys make a killing just setting up NT and supporting
> it, not adding a damn thing to the customer's business.  I guess the whole
> idea of custom software is in jeopardy, since we have evolved enough
> technology to make off the shelf components within the budgets of even the
> smallest companies.  I think that this has been the AS/400's niche, and the
> marketplace will no longer bear a single costly system.
>         People will buy Wintel and M$ crap in volume before buying a costly
> client/server box from IBM.  As for the 400, who cares about it when you can
> buy a fleet of Wintel boxes that are "fault tolerant" because there are
> multiple nodes so that they can fail with a hot backup.  I still think that
> IBM wants customers to buy Intel servers running either Linux or NT until
> they cannot physically plug any more in, then migrate to the zSeries.  They
> make a killing either way.
>         As for "legacy" software, I get infuriated when I hear this term.  
>Auto
> makers do not harp on older cars being "legacy" automobiles.  M$ has no
> "legacy" software since the crap they produce has a life cycle of less than
> 18 months.  What is the problem with businesses running software that works
> without change?  If the business grows, let them buy a bigger machine and
> run whatever the hell they want to on it.  When there is a business need for
> client/server, or whatever the next paradigm will be, let the customer
> decide, not IBM.  The interactive governing by IBM on the iSeries is crap,
> and I think that businesses will migrate to another platform instead of
> upgrading and paying a fortune to IBM for what they already have.  If you
> have to re-write your software, it will done on another platform.  I have
> always worked for small companies, less than $100M in revenue.  I know
> several that are looking to can the 400 if they have to re-write the apps.
> They will run them on NT.
>
> +---
> | This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
> | To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
> | To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
> | To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
> | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
> +---

+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---