Bundling ADT

["Jon Paris" <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >> who suffers? The small IT shop who runs a small AS/400, probably a
bought-in application, and who want to 'develop' small CL programs to help
automate their system.

The last numbers I saw from IBM would appear to indicate that this customer
is almost mythical.  The RPG compiler alone ships on about 70% of all boxes
shipped.  Your "customer" exists within the remaining 30% along with all the
systems that are shipped as pure production boxes, and all those folks who
could care less about writing CL.  That is not a big market.  So - they give
it away free.  How many companies would stay on the iSeries as a result?

Which brings us to the issue which you didn't address.  How many companies
will now _keep_ their iSeries because with the tools available for "free"
their programmers have been able to demonstrate some of the stuff they could
be doing?  I've met several in this position and would hazard a bet that the
number is at least an order of magnitude bigger than the number "saved" by a
free SEU!

Separating SEU/PDM (because no matter what you say someone would soon be
whining that they should have PDM as well) from the rest of the tools is not
a zero cost item.  And separation is the only way to go, since attempts to
ship the same product under different product codes are doomed to failure
(or at least massive PTF problems cased on past experience).



Jon Paris
Partner400