Re: webfacing and competing products

Jim,

There is a lot to understand about the whole refacing/webfacing world. It
can be hard to sort through the hype of marketing and the "I'm better than
the competition" slams that happen. Living in this world every day means I
get to hear all the objections and see all the silliness of vendor
posturing. It becomes personal sometimes, and that can also lead to
misinformation. Here is my attempt to interpret ~some~ of the words that are
bandied about. I am sure there are other viewpoints on this topic.

First, "screen scraping". Our friend Joe slams products that are "screen
scrapers" because they are not JSP. This term has really fallen behind in
our new world of refacing. Screen scraping does not refer any more to
reading a 5250 data stream, but it now includes any product that simply
recreates the 5250 data stream in a new Windows-type frame - including HTML.
If your product simply recreates the 24x80 (or 27x132) experience, then you
have just "screen scraped". Joe's product may be technologically intriguing,
but along with many of the competition, he is just taking what you have, and
deploying the same stuff in a browser window. Screen scraping does not get
you far along the GUI road.

Next, "lipstick on a pig". I hear this term a lot, and I think it may
eventually go away with COBOL mainframe programmers. If a vendor is calling
my application software a "pig", then I would be a little concerned at their
ability to understand the challenges I am about to face. Most products have
matured beyond this initial "ugly face" syndrome. Whether or not I can do
it, I say that if you want to call your application a "pig", I can at least
make it look like Elle MacPherson - a complete makover. In fact, there are
some products that can perform plastic surgery on your iSeries applications.
This becomes very apparent when you start looking at the products out there.
With the release of our new product, I am even resorting to talk about
"bionic man".. :-)

Next, "training and consulting". With any product that is going to take you
beyond a simple screen scraping, there will be some upfront learning curve.
You may have to learn JSP, you may have to learn Websphere, or you may have
to learn newlook. The more you learn, the better the end result, the smaller
the maintenance cycle, and the happier your users will be. Do not
underestimate the initial training cycle if you are building a true GUI. You
will now be living in a true object oriented and event driven world. It is
in your long-term interest to add these skills.

Another, "GUI". If you are about to "reface", the requirement may have come
from a number of sources. Software vendors need to reface to counter the
"that looks ugly" syndrome when competing against products built with GUI.
Users may be finding the green screen environment is difficult to use, new
users may not be able to use it at all and require extensive training in
that "old" front end. Whatever the reason, decide on how GUI you want your
end result to be. Do you want Graphical? Is it a User Interface? There is a
whole spectrum of products that produce a basic interface that is still hard
to use, but simply went from "ugly" green to "ugly" gray. I push my
customers, and everyone who ever attends my (non-product specific) GUI Tips
classes, to spend some time learning about the Windows interface and
Graphical User Interface. The end result will be something very modern,
efficient to use and will look great!

And two you will hear a lot, "thin client" and "fat client". Think of the
40MB browser and 10MB JVM as zero megabytes and zero install, and then you
can have HTML for "free". But know that HTML and related languages are
function poor and complicated languages when it comes to GUI. Using a thin
client can mean compromising on how much function you deploy in the final
user interface. And, if someone says they have a thin client, but you need
to install a Java Servlet or Applet - you just installed a fat client. This
whole area can be very messy, and one recommendation is to be very careful
about where you sit on the .NET vs J2EE debate. Any prejudice in this area
can effectively remove some great tools from your consideration.

And one more I will add, "integration". The world of refacing and webfacing
has matured, IMHO. While IBM sorts out exactly what its GUI offering should
be in the iSeries world, many iSeries are found in heterogeneous worlds. New
non-iSeries applications abound. Desktop applications are key to daily
business decisions. Without the integration of our legacy, or green screen,
applications with the desktop and our other enterprise applications, our
businesses will be left in the dust of our competitors. While looking into
refacing, be sure to understand where this new interface fits inside your
entire organization.

The world of refacing is moving in a new direction, leaving screen scrapers
behind.

In summary, there is more to refacing than some cool technical products.
PSC/400 and newlook are both "cool" tools. But neither of them is any good
without the original green screen, and neither one of them will produce a
true GUI without understanding the tool.

Jim, my recommendation (which you may have already done) is to understand
the business reason for your refacing/webfacing push. Look for the tools
that provide you the future (short- or long-term) that you desire.

Hope this helps,
Trevor

One P.S.
It is very apparent that Joe does not understand newlook, but has simply
read some marketing material. On the other hand, I do not fully understand
his software - my comments are made from reading his marketing material and
his numerous sales pitches on these forums. I believe I have represented his
software correctly.