Wow.

<disclaimer>
I write for MCPress, and have done so now for many years.  My books are
published by them as well, so take this post with the appropriate grain
of salt.
</disclaimer>

I found out today that iSeries Network has leapt brazenly into bed with
Microsoft.  They are in fact teaming up with Microsoft for the "Midrange
Modernization Tour" (shall we call it ".Net-apalooza") in which they
promote the concept of "integrating" the iSeries into your "enterprise".

By this they mean first moving your applications off of the iSeries,
using it as a big SQL server, and then finally moving your data to SQL
Server.  They pay some lip service to "integration", but the primary
players in this are folks like ASNA and their Monarch migration tool, or
Iteration2 which migrates SAP customers to Microsoft Axapta.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/midrange/default.mspx

It's starting to get ugly, and it's interesting to watch who jumps ship
first.

Joe