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

Simon, thanks for your comments.

OS/2 was wonderful but I doubt CODE/400 users would have saved it.  And with
the demise of OS/2, what was the alternative?  Let's consider this a
chicken-and-egg question: should IBM have kept OS/2 around to support CODE,
or should CODE exist within an OS/2-type shell?

I specifically picked 1995 because of the CODE announcement and I'll ask
again: where was education and promotion?  They had 17 years to plan for it!
While I'm a big fan of CODE, the bottom line is that it's two orders of
magnitude (yes, I /mean/ 100 times) less stable than SEU and SDA...and I'm
being charitable by saying two orders.  It's easy to write off CODE's ills
as Windows problems; unfortunately, I suspect the bigger problem is IBM's
trying to "share" everything, including LPEX engines, marketing programs,
and who know what else.  I remember horrible performance issues on the S/38
but don't recall major problems with SEU or SDA.

My business, customers, and limited knowledge are iSeries-centric and I have
a nothing more than a passing interest in the other platforms.  IBM is
trying to manage to revenue and profit goals and the iSeries is just another
box to the Suits.  On Ballmer: is there any fire-breather beating the IBM
drum for any platform?  Sometimes I think we're crawling along on the
abysmal plain 20,000 feet under water; every now and then we bump into
Hawaii (only to be burned by the volcano).

I see no business, ethical, or marketing merit in Fast400 and I will not
deal with customers that use it.  Fast400 may force IBM (yeah, right) to
adjust pricing, but it's more likely the Rochester wizards will go
back-and-forth with the unknown developer while customers are whiplashed.
All I see is a sick patient (iSeries) and a weasel selling leeches.

"Interactive" tax is accurate and not pejorative.  We're charged more for
certain kinds of (interactive) CPU cycles, right?  I don't mind paying for a
good interface and I have no problem for paying more for software (it sets a
wonderful precedent for software vendors) if the software is up to the mark;
just make sure it works and be sure to provide lots of training.  Sure, we
have WebFacing (does WebFacing still count as interactive work, or has that
been changed?) to carry us somewhere; what comes after that?  Will WebFacing
be the WSU of the iSeries, or are we just treading water until new
development tools are announced, or until new OS/400 functions provide a
better foundation for application development?

The most difficult issue for me to deal with is the lack of clear direction.
I don't have, nor do I care to hire, a staff of 10 people to rewrite my 5250
applications with technology du jour; my business is highly focused on
application issues and we don't care to be at the bleeding edge of
technology.  But I'll make that investment in the staff when the technology
settles; it will be Y2K all over again.  At this point, I'm giving serious
thought to writing my own DDS-to-HTML-and-CGIDEV2 tool; it's the last thing
I have time for and I know it's not the best.  But the Holy Grail may be the
plain cup...

I don't remember seeing an article in any midrange publications comparing
the various approaches to eliminating DDS applications...when DDS goes, so
do many other issues.  I'll look...

-rf


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On
Behalf Of Simon Coulter
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2002 8:03 AM
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Thank for your correspondence - The letter I got from the folks
at FAST400


Hello Reeve,

I wasn't going to enter this futile argument but you've said some things I
cannot let pass.  I'm not picking on you specifically but you wrote:

>IBM is telling us (in words and dollars) to get off of 5250.  Hey IBM:
>where were our non-5250 development tools, education, and promotion seven
>years ago, when we needed them? I have great hope in WDSC, even though
>it's still in its infancy, so we'll assume WDSC is IBM's final answer
>(but we'd better keep the lifeline number handy).

Seven years ago?  That would be 1995.  CODE/400 was a start at the tools
you desire and was available then on OS/2 and what happened?  Most of you
whinged and said "Unhh, but it doesn't run on Windows".  Roger Pence and
his ilk wrote similar comments in the trade rags.  You had the tools
available but YOU didn't want to use them.  There were two very good
reasons CODE/400 came out on OS/2.

        1/  It was IBM's PC operating system
        2/  It worked better than windoze

If more of you had adopted CODE/400 on OS/2 seven years ago who knows
where we might be now!

The only reason CODE/400 made it to windows is because of customer and
self-appointed industry commentator whinging.  You wanted the tools moved
to the crappy environment you chose rather than moving to a better
environment.  IBM listened to you and even though CODE and the other
components of WDS are now available on windows they are as flaky as all
get out so you got what you asked for.  The unkind would say you got what
you deserved!

>You think IBM has a monopoly...what does Microsoft have with control of
>90% of the world's desktops?  The answer: better marketing (although I
>appreciate the efforts Anne Lucas puts forth, I dream of a Steve Ballmer
>type screaming himself hoarse for the iSeries) and better lawyers.

I'll resist the tempation to comment on what a bastard like Ballmer would
do to a company like IBM but I can't see a 'manic monkey boy' working for
IBM.  Microsoft's main advantage is that they have ONE platform --
windows!  There are two variants; home and office but as far as Microsoft
are concerned it is a single platform.

IBM have FOUR platforms and all the political in-fighting which goes with
that.  Rochester would like the AS/400 to be the much touted eServer.  It
can already run OS/400, PASE, Linux, and Winslop.  AIX is supported with
520.  All it needs now is support for MVS (zOS) in a partition and it will
BE the eServer.  The rest of IBM doesn't want that.  Somehow I don't see
Poughkeepsie relinquishing its hold on MVS to let some upstart midrange
system run IBM's flagship OS.  They'd rather create a new piece of
hardware to bring MVS to the midrange (I forget what it's called but it
was announced only 3-4 months ago).

If IBM (as opposed to Rochester) were at all interested in the AS/400, and
what's best for the customer, it would get the marketing it deserves.  But
no.  Instead we have the various IBM platforms fighting each other for the
same customers.  An objective view would suggest that a given customer
could be equally well satisfied by either of OS/400, AIX, or NT.  Leaving
aside the issues of reliablity and scalability, any of those operating
systems and associated hardware is capable of providing an acceptable
business environment given the low standards expected by most businesses.
Thus we cannot expect a concerted, cohesive marketing effort from IBM.
They tried that with the eServer campaign but that just confused potential
customers because the obvious and unanswerable question is: "Which
eServer?"

IBM's eServer campaign essentially stated; "We don't care which platform
you choose, Mainframe, Midrange, Unix, or PC, as long as you buy it from
us".  If a customer asks which one is right for me they'll be offered the
one with the most potential for IBM (or the respective VAR), which usually
means the one with the most services potential.  Which one is that?  It
would be easier to answer the obverse question.  Which one isn't?  The
answer to that is, of course, the AS/400.  Why?  Because Rochester has
done a bloody good job of creating a powerful, flexible, complex
environment that strangely isn't complex to run and therefore doesn't have
a huge services potential.  (We'll ignore the minor treks off the true
path with follies such as QSHELL, PASE, WebSphere, etc. that add more
confusion than necessary.  They do increase services potential because
they are more complex than they need to be.  WebSphere is a good idea,
just poorly implemented.  PASE and QSHELL are there primarily to help Unix
weenies get their crap on another platform with minimal pain to the
weenies and to hell with the alien environment they create as a result.)

Ahh, I wonder why I bother?   It's not as if any IBMer who reads this is
in a position to do anything about it.  It's not as if the rest of you
'get it' else you wouldn't even be arguing the merits of Fast400 type
tools, nor would you be using perjorative terms like 'interactive tax',
nor would you believe that because the hardware is capable of a certain
performance level you should get that performance level even though you
didn't pay for full access.

I do agree that some of IBM's charges concerning AS/400 hardware are hard
to accept (e.g., why is AS/400 main storage and DASD **SO** much more
expensive than the RS/6000 equivalent?).  Some of the additional cost can
be attributed to subsidising the integration of OS/400 and associated LPPs
but a lot of it is simply that the AS/400 market will pay the extra.  I
think it would be better if the hardware costs came down and the software
costs went up.  At least then you would see what you were paying for and
that might shut a few of you up.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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