Re: Why NOT the 400? -- MIDRANGE-L

Thanks Scott.

I think many of us who have been trained in this industry (myself from the early days of the system38) are frustrated with how the 400's been addressed during the past few seasons.

And I know there are way too many characters out there, both 400 professionals and CEO's of corporations involved with the 400, who are stone blind on why this wonderful box is the best solution to keep your data safe and accessible. You want a sexy front end? Go ahead. You want a sexy back end? You're gonna pay for your stupidity of selection.

Just heard from someone about a large corporation based in NY scrapping their 400 environment for an Oracle setup. Oracle. Loaded from head to foot with bugs. A friend of mine who works for IBM - NYC as a PM has told me often of his pleas with companies to retain the 400 as their warehouse management solution instead of the more sexy but unstable and cumbersome choices now being offered. He loses most arguments...and when they finally go into prodution, there are a myriad of bugs and bad performance issues that add another notch to his "I told you so" roster. Programs bombing, programs freezing during transactions, slow response times, long hours between application turnover, etc. Obviously, IBM makes matters worse with their promotional strategy.

Perhaps you are right on the money with your request to take this argument outside the 400 community. Somehow, someway, someone needs to educate the business population on the value of the 400 as either a back or front office system and that "sexy" solutions are almost always the worst solutions especially when you're trying to produce a stable data environment for your operation.

From: Scott Klement <klemscot@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Why NOT the 400?
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2003 01:12:50 -0500 (CDT)
Rick,
Asking these questions here on the Midrange-L list is pointless.  You'll
get a lot of agreement with your position, and you'll get a few people who
don't really understand why the community is shrinking who will,
nonetheless, give their conjectures.
However, you'll never find out the real truth here.   Ask your questions
in other areas, on Windows-related groups, on Unix-related groups, etc.
Asking here is like asking Tipper Gore why G.W. Bush won the election.
She may be able to conjecture, but she didn't vote for Bush, and it
wouldn't have been her decision to put him there.
On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Rick Rayburn wrote:

> Why NOT? > > I don't understand. Everybody in - and out of - our industry know the 400 is > the very best-of-breed choice for management of your back office. Don't > heavy-transactional environments flourish better in shallow water? The 400 > does that very well. > > So, who cares how fast you're speeding down the super highway? You gotta > have a vault to protect your crucial data, don't you? > > So,why is that so hard to market? Doesn't our box provide sufficient-enough > access to the big road? Sure it does. Certainly enough for a sizable market > share. And that's fine. No sweat. > > We should be getting all the back office action, right? > > Shouldn't the 400, "promote itself". It's not as if we are trying to sell a > lemon disguised as a peach. > > We have a solid resource and community. Why does our industry grow smaller? > _______________________________________________ This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.

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