RE: COMMON at Gaylord Palms

Don,

<Wrote this way back when, but never sent it for some reason.>  IBM is not
insane (although they claim Eclipse is the one editor for all programmers,
on all platforms, which has /some/ points in it's favor...;-).  IBM is
300,000-some people that have vastly contradictory goals (unfortunately) and
perspectives (fortunately), which may give the appearance that IBM is
"insane".  It is confusing when the one Corporation, IBM, favors
contradictory approaches.

IBM isn't going to intentionally kill the goose that lays the golden eggs
anymore than they'll kill off the mainframe.  (As Joe pointed out in recent
posts on SSA, however, making decisions based strictly on EITHER extreme of
the boardroom or the geeks could unintentionally have that end-result.)

They have tried and do try to kill RPG, DDS and CL and have largely
succeeded.  (See http://www.midrangeserver.com/mso/mso092303-story03.html
"to modernize <cough> ...to wean them off RPG.")  This would be in support
of the notion that one OS (pick one: Windows or Linux) and one
language-toolset (pick one: .NET or Java/SQL) is best for EVERYbody.  There
are those within IBM who have a more (imo) well-reasoned approach.  That
Software Group's WebSphere will have a HUGE place in the market, but is not
for everybody...  And the approach that Windows and *nix (as well as
zSeries) obviously have their place in the server market, but the 400 is
superior in many (if not most) respects.  So why carve the pie into 3 pieces
(Websphere, Windows and *nix) when there are 4 pieces in the marketspace
(that last being iSeries and zSeries, which I've heard were the most
profitable).

Given recent figures published on Q2 sales IBM is having pretty good luck,
for whatever reason.



| -----Original Message-----
| [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Don

| Yup...kinda has come to mind a few times....kinda really sad...

| On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Vern Hamberg wrote:
|
| > Could it be that IBM has declared the iSeries to be the
| strategic direction
| > at IBM? You know what happens then.
| >
| > I could not resist.
| >
| > <vbg>
| >
| > At 05:26 PM 9/22/2003 -0400, you wrote:
| >
| >
| > >Gene,
| > >
| > >I'd be happy just for the clients...most of mine have gone to Unix or
| > >Windows....
| > >
| > >...I guess IBM is just complacent in letting this box decline...maybe
| > >that's thier big picture plan....