Standard vs. Enterprise -- MIDRANGE-L

No flame here.  

We're starting to consider an upgrade from our 730 to an 825.  Lucky for
us, our only terminals are the system consoles, which will go Ops
Console at some point.  Our user base is dispersed around the US and
uses VPN over the Internet for connectivity.

Looking at Standard vs. Enterprise costs, mostly the big price
difference, I am wondering about the potential to use one of the
browser-based emulators that run 'interactive' jobs in batch.  Spending
a few tens of thousands on one of those products + customization,
training, & deployment would likely still be worlds cheaper than the
price difference between a Standard & Enterprise 825.  The Enterprise OS
software bundle I don't care about as we already have what we need and
would only be interested in, perhaps, BRMS.

Considering this option is very much in it's infancy for use as we've
ruled it out in prior years.  But the technology seems to be maturing so
I am willing to consider it now.  IBM's tools are not an option, though,
as they change their minds and discontinue products of this nature far
too frequently for us to consider using them in a production
environment.  We still have some Windows 95 PCs...

Does anyone have experiences with the web-based emulators they would
like to share?  Response times, security, customizations, vendor
support, printing/file transfer capabilities, etc.  Private email is
fine if you don't want to reply to the list.

Thanks to all,
John


-----Original Message-----
From: Jan Megannon [mailto:jmegannon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2003 6:00 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: Image catalog to install V5R2


Hi,

This is a somewhat emotive issue among some over here. The whole issue
around the Standard vs Enterprise models is pushing some customers off
the iSeries and what may be a trickle now could become a flood.
Especially so among the SMB customers. Most (if not all) of them run
Green Screen apps.The companies who previously opted for systems like
the 170-2290/2291 or the 720-1500/1501/1502 are now left with expensive
options, were they to stay on the iSeries.

Quite a number of these systems are installed at manufacturing
companies. The staff employed in the production environments are often
semi-skilled, with somewhat basic levels of education (the reasons for
which I will not enter into here in this forum). For them the most
appropriate applications are the Green Screen ones. These are also the
most robust apps for this type of environment. When I worked for the
local mining group De Beers, we had terminals that had been installed
620 meters underground, in all that dust and humidity. (Admittedly, that
was still on the 4381 and 9375, connected via muxes, 3174's and the
NCP).

In cases like this, the customer does _not!!_ want to GUIfy the apps.
What for? Just so that they can now force Mr Gates to take more of their
money? So now, what growth options are there on the iSeries? Extremely
(cost per transaction come to mind?) expensive ones! Maybe that is why
so many of our Small Medium Business customers are opting to live with
there current level of technology for as long as there are spares
available. In many ways, the system that they originally dedicated
themselves to (as far back as the S36) has gone beyond their reach.
Their bottom lines have not kept pace with the cost of the platform.
Sure, that is their problem. It is also a loss to us. BTW: if I do not
need to go 400+ miles to fetch my daughter, but only travel around town,
why will a Model T not do?

There are so many pros and cons to this over here that one could
virtually start a whole new list just for this.

Just my thoughts. Now go ahead and flame !! :-)

Cheers.

Jan.

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