Re: Green-screen versus browser

["Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The iSeries is a competitive advantage.  What do your company's competitors
use?  What is their experience?  Who else in their field is using iSeries
and not changing? 
 
Also, you are not a sales guru.  Call your IBM person that you know.  If
s/he can't bring in troops then maybe IBM doesn't deserve the \business, eh?
---------------------------------
Booth Martin
http://www.martinvt.com
---------------------------------
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: 04/24/05 22:03:57
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Green-screen versus browser
 
I'm writing a management paper for a customer (in support of the
iSeries but trashing the WebSphere "solution" and the lack of native
browser support) and working on a concise description of the
green-screen vs. browser question.  The context is to explain why the
iSeries, in spite of all its greatness (performance, low TCO,
reliability), isn't known to and/or accepted by a large portion of the
IT community.  One factor is IBM's previous marketing failures (no
other word for it, sorry; well, maybe "absence"); another reason is
the preponderance of the green-screen UI, my current topic.
 
Here's what I have so far:
 
"The problem with green-screen is that the programmer is limited to a
fixed font size, a limited color palette, essentially no support for
graphics, only 132 columns (across), only 27 lines (down), and the
requirement to use a non-standard, usually non-free terminal emulation
program (Client Access, etc.), which means you can't talk directly to
many new communications devices like PDA's.
 
"There is nothing innately good about browsers; except for Firefox,
they're bloated with generally useless features, each has its own
unique characteristics (meaning it doesn't work exactly the same as
other browsers), and many continue to be a gateway ("Gates way"?) for
viruses and spyware.
 
"The benefit of browsers is that the programmer has much greater
control over what the user sees and how the screen works...but it
takes a lot more programming effort to deliver a browser-based
application.  The basic tradeoff is balancing time-to-deliver (low for
green-screen, high for browser), function (low for green screen, high
for browser), and performance (relatively high for green-screen,
relatively low for browser).
 
Am I missing any points meaningful to senior management?
 
Thanks,
Reeve
 
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