RE: Thank for your correspondence - The letter I got from the folks at FAST400

The genesis of the problem is IBM's policy of charging us big bucks for an
inferior interface.  Yes, 5250 is fast, easy, and stable.  Along with those
useful attributes we have limited screen size, almost no color control, no
font control, clumsy attribute management (indicators or program-to-system
fields), and the requirement for a terminal emulation program between your
user and the application.

I'll pay for a better interface, I'll use a poor interface for free, I'll
pay my interactive tax, and I'm looking for an alternative.  After 24 years,
I'm still dating the iSeries steadily but I'm not going steady any more.

The most interesting thing about Fast400 is that it's the first OS/400
virus.  IBM has breathtaking technical resources and know-how (it's the
^%@!$%'s in marketing and pricing that make us crazy, not to mention the
lawyers) and I'm betting IBM has a plan.

Note to The Storage Solutions Group: don't come to a gun fight with a knife.

-reeve

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of Leif Svalgaard
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 8:29 PM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Thank for your correspondence - The letter I got from the folks
at FAST400

From: Al Barsa <barsa@barsaconsulting.com>
> o     If IBM fails (at thwarting your product), they will do away with the
> premium for interactive.  I understand that this is what you want, however
> this will have two consequences:
>       2).   The one that all AS/400 customers will not like, IBM will have
>       to raise the price of systems high enough to keep the iSeries
portion
>       of the company viable, which will have a significant (upward) effect
>       on the price of systems.

Al, you advance an argument here that I never saw the logic of.
We had heard for years now that "IBM wants us to get off the green
screen and that the interactive tax was the 'incentive' to help us
achieve that". If we all followed IBM's direction and got off 5250,
IBM would then (according to your argument) be forced to raise
the price the "keep the iSeries portion of the company viable".
I'm sure IBM would love to raise the price (for whatever reason),
but they might just price themselves out of business. The box is
already overpriced. If IBM cannot compete fair and square against
Sun, HP, and Intel-based servers, then they deserve to be put out
of their misery.

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