RE: webfacing and competing products - let's move on ... -- MIDRANGE-L

Ken,

Nice thought, but it really doesn't address the core problem. Companies have invested millions of dollars in applications written to run their business. The software works and meets the needs of the business, but the technical expectations of users have changed.

Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) created the concept of the graphical user interface many years ago. At that time, personal computers were in their infancy (available only to hobbyists of folks with no lives), high speed communications were 9,600bps (compared to 1,000,000,000bps today), and the largest computers in the world had less computational capability than the laptop that I am using to type this. Almost every company EXCEPT Xerox benefited from this research.

At the same time, businesses were creating the initial versions of the applications that they run today. There were no graphical user interfaces available. The block mode used in 5250 applications allowed the greatest utilization of the limited processor resources available. Good programmers were paid $15,000/year and were respected for the professionals that they were.

Character-mode user interfaces existed, but had "fleas" that are comparable to those that you discuss. What happens when the application crashes halfway through a screen ... what got updated? The character-mode applications lacked scalability because there was little data buffering and the central processor quickly became overloaded.

Today, the technology expectations of users continue to advance without any thought to the constraints of existing technology. Their existing applications have been modified to continue to fit the businesses like a glove. At the same time, they reflect a user interface that does not reflect todays users' expectations. Because good programmers get paid MUCH more than $15,000/year today and many newly minted IT staff over the past 10 years see programming as dirty work, the cost/risk of rewriting these applications has become essentially prohibitive (especially the RISK).

Companies have two choices ... - buy an applications package and change their business to fit the package (big RISK here too) - change the user interface to conform with today's expectations

There will not be an IBM magic bullet to make this better. They tried for years to strongly encourage companies to move to different interfaces by charging the interactive tax, but the cost/risk of rewriting the applications proved more expensive than the tax.

If IBM's Server Group management wants to preserve their iSeries customer base, they had better understand that a company who is forced by IBM to buy a new package or rewrite their applications from scratch is just as likely to NOT choose IBM hardware for the new environment. Most changes of this magnitude within a company come as a result of a change in CIO ... who will rarely favor the incumbent (IBM) system.

WAKE UP IBM ... IS ANYONE THERE LISTENING???

Let's all move on ... we've all bickered too much!!!

John

At 09:22 AM 6/16/2003, you wrote:

Several tools available. My preference currently is Joe's. That not withstanding., are we not still looking at a block mode screen? Most Windows applications I've used and seen, including all varieties of VB , are character mode.. These two worlds have been colliding now, for over 20 years, and the operational differences in the two methods, cause operator errors. To Wit: I've seen, and had to intercede, in situations where, an emulation screen is worked on for a minute or two, the window is minimized, the user works on other windows apps, maximizes the emulation window again, and then closes it. Voila!...no enter key was pressed, no update occurred. And I could probably show several other examples where the two worlds collide. The sooner there is a common interface developed by IBM the better off we'll all be. Ken Shields