Re: change management software -- MIDRANGE-L

I was a developer in an Implementor shop for eight years (prior to seven
years ago) and was then the Administrator for an Aldon shop for three years
and for the last four years have been the Administrator in a TurnOver shop.
I would rate them TurnOver first, Aldon second, and Implementor third.

Of course, I was not the Administrator on Implementor site and it's been
seven years since I've used it, so you will need to factor that in to my
opinion. From what I hear though, there hasn't been that much change. From
the point of view of an administrator, I rate TurnOver the highest because
it is so wide open to customization through exit points, etc.  Aldon was
actually a little easier to admin because they were stricter in how things
had to be done, but it was not nearly as flexible from the programmer's
point of view.  If you are going to have an administrator who can spend a
lot of time with it, I would recommend TurnOver.  If you are just going to
set it up with a lot of fixed rules and tell the programmers to "just live
with it", I'd recommend Aldon. Aldon goes out of their way to keep you from
shooting youself in the foot.  TurnOver says "It's your foot. If you want to
shoot yourself, we'll show you how to load the gun!".

When I admined Aldon, there were many things I wanted to change about how it
functioned, but there was just no easy way to do it.  When I went to
TurnOver, I was amazed at how open it was.  You not only have access to
dozens of exit points, but also to all of their database files, data areas,
etc. You can literally change just about anything you want to change about
how it functions.  However, that also means you can spend a lot of time
tinkering with it.

If you do go with TurnOver, and get in a bind on something, email me at
(ncsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) and I'll be happy to help.  I have literally
hundreds of procedures and exit point programs I've developed over the years
to do just about anything you would want to do.  Their tech support people
are great too, and I could say the same about Aldon.  Aldon does have better
user group meetings, but then it's hard to beat San Francisco :-)

HTH,
Nelson Smith

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "McBride, Catherine" <CMcbride@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 2:31 PM
Subject: change management software


> We are evaluating change management software for ISeries, and would enjoy
> hearing what products you might be using.  Any info you're willing to
share
> will be much much appreciated!
> Kind Regards,
> Cathy McBride
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