RE: possible Lawson newbie

> Craig:
> Any recommendations or suggestions on Lawson, 
> platform, db, OS...... would be great. Thanks.

> Phil:
> I believe the ISeries platform is best for 
> Lawson, having been to their technical conferences 
> and heard their Unix and Windows Cobol horror stories.


The, um, evolution of Lawson is a pretty strange story.  I believe their
original platform was a Burroughs system, but they were a serious AS/400
application for quite a long time.  For a long time AS/400 was their big
install base and their bread and butter.  Back when the "AS" in AS/400 meant
Application Systems, Lawson was a prime example of the type of off-the-shelf
business system you could implement quickly and well on an AS/400.  When
Lawson redeveloped their product for "open" systems and "open" databases
things got kind of hairy.  Lawson's Unix and Windows environment is, in my
assessment, an OS/400 emulator.  They took their products' functionality and
ported it to these thinner OS's using the OS/400 environment we take for
granted as a model.  The print manager roughly mimics spool management.  The
fat client is Telnet-based.  Their job scheduler roughly mimics Work
Management.  They've got a layer of I/O programs that emulate traditional
AS/400 ISAM database access.  The I/O programs provide a common interface
regardless of your choice of "open" relational database, while baffling and
annoying most DBAs and database programmers.

In migrating to a pseudo-AS/400 environment under Windows and Unix under
SQL, Oracle, etc. they've built a large, successful install base on those
platforms while (IMNSHO) compromising their AS/400 success.  The Lawson
development environment better allows common development to the Windows/Unix
platforms through shared components such as MicroFocus COBOL, but
development for the AS/400 lags behind.  The Lawson Apps integrate into the
Lawson Environment, but the Lawson Environment layer is (necessarily) very
different on the AS/400.  Lawson Apps development comes out of their own
code generator, which is based on, among other things, MicroFocus COBOL.
This COBOL is in some way ported to RPG.  Many years ago they had a major
misstep trying to get the AS/400 product to version 7.0.  I believe that
they lost a lot of ground during those 2-3 years.  We jumped ship from
Lawson on the AS/400 to Lawson on Unix and Oracle during that period.  There
were lots of rumors (unfounded) of Lawson dumping the AS/400 platform.  On a
number of occasions Lawson has re-affirmed their partnering relationship
with IBM and their commitment to the AS/400.

Back when Lawson initially failed to release 7.0 for the AS/400 there was
talk of allowing the AS/400 products to follow a divergent path.  The AS/400
apps and environment would spawn its own enhancements and functionality
based on its users requirements.  Ultimately Lawson relented, deciding that
the AS/400 releases would follow the same path as the rest of the products.
As plancor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx has observed, Lawson's features and enhancements
for the AS/400 platform may be offered AFTER they are released for Unix and
Windows.

If you're comfortable managing SQL Server or Oracle databases and major apps
on Windows or Unix you're probably better off with Lawson on those
platforms.  If you don't want to take on the complexity and burden of Unix
servers or the database administration requirements of Oracle you should ask
Lawson some hard questions about availability of releases, release upgrades,
and features and functions.  Before you implement Lawson on an AS/400 you
should get them to find you a comparably-sized reference customer running
the same modules.  Some of Lawson's AS/400 customers run well and happily on
the platform, others are perpetually frustrated by being last in line for
new features.