Re: HASB mulls new computer system

[Pete Helgren <Pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

There is MUCH more to the story (as usual).

They run a 5250 based application called CIMS that, many moons ago, was 
the premier School Administration software in the country.  IBM even 
licensed it for a while and there was quite a large install base (around 
1200-1400 total).  Great package.  The original company, J&K Computers, 
was purchased by NCS (National Computer Systems).  NCS was a hardware 
company that sold scanners and saw this as a way to grow their presence 
beyond scanning and scanforms.  They didn't know much about software and 
knew next to nothing about the AS/400.  They jettisoned most of the 
existing management and experienced developer staff over a few years.  
They closed the development shop and eventually offshored the 
maintenance while offering next to nothing as far as enhancements to 
customers.  The customer base shrank.  They made attempts to GUI the 
product using most screen scraper technology but never invested in 
approaches that would ensure a future. They bought other companies and 
tried to move existing customers to the software developed by these 
purchased companies. NCS was purchased, in turn, by Pearson PLC, a very 
large multinational company that sold textbooks (more "synergy") and had 
some other products in the education arena.  Pearson has also purchased 
other solutions that used other platforms and then tried to move the now 
iSeries customers to those new applications and platforms.

I know this because I worked for J&K, then NCS. I left before Pearson 
came into the picture (thank goodness!).

This is less of a story about how the AS/400 is failing technology and 
more about bad product management.  Heck, the AS/400 at HASB has been 
running for 10 years.  How many Windows servers are they still running 
that are that old?  The student application is a 5250 application 
(still) and still mostly RPGIII.  It IS rather hard to use.  But there 
is SO much more that could be said about other pluses and minuses.

The "rest of the story" is that the original authors of the software got 
together about 3 years ago and we started rewriting the application, 
from scratch, without source code, and it is all web based.  It is even 
Open Source.  It is still iSeries (System i) centric and we have about 
100 or so of the original 1200 customers who understand that leaving the 
iSeries for any other platform while saying it is "difficult to operate 
and maintain" is simply not true.  There was a time when my 4 year old 
son would go down and stuff a new tape in the model E20 we had so I 
could do a backup.  I can tell you stories about school districts that 
have custodians start the backup and IPL the system at night.  Difficult 
to operate and maintain?  I don't think so.

No.  Slick marketing by Sungard/Pentamation and the "siren call" of of 
GUI is what is leading them in the wrong direction.  If they had any 
vision they would buy themselves an inexpensive 520 and continue to run 
CIMS until we finish our web replacement.  Due by the end of next year.

Sorry for the extra, extra long post.  But, I KNOW this story.

Pete Helgren


Steve Richter wrote:

> I like that iSeries network is reporting the news on our platform,
> good and bad. Here is a link from their site to a newspaper article
> about a school board wanting to replace its as400 based student
> information system that is "difficult to operate and maintain".
>
> http://www.iseriesnetwork.com/content/f3/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.viewArticle&webID=1001&newsID=5021&issueID=5687&articleID=52343
>
> http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1452&Itemid=2
>
> -Steve
>
>