RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence

I believe one of the main reasons it's perceived as "old" or "legacy" is 
because that's what the competition is telling their customers and 
prospective customers.  They can't compete in a side-by-side comparison, 
so they have to deflect their potential customers away for all of the 
System i benefits and advantages by selling them the hype that theirs is 
the more modern solution!

Thank you,
Ronald L. Zimmerman
I.T. Applications Manager
Swiss Valley Farms, Co.      http://www.swissvalley.com
"The Good for You Company"
Email: Ron-Zimmerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 04/28/2006 12:53:10 PM:

> Jim,
>    The reason the AS/400 is still around is because it is a stable
> platform and you don't have to constantly port the applications from VB
> to coldfusion to dot.net, which means that there is a good business case
> for using the machine. That however is a separate issue from why the
> system is perceived as obsolete by people who don't work with it every
> day. Because they don't know about all of its wonderful features, they
> look at the user interface and say "That looks like it was created in
> the early 80's it must be OLD"
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jim Damato
> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2006 11:30 AM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: RE: The Perpetual Myth of iSeries Obsolescence
> 
> >The reason that people think the AS/400 is obsolete is because 
> >it looks obsolete.
> 
> I dunno Chris.  Our new 570 looks pretty much like any other server in
> the data center -- rack mounted, and some shade of black.
> 
> >We can argue all day long whether terminal 
> >interface is better then GUI for certain types of tasks. The 
> >Unix guys do this to they will talk and talk about how great 
> >the command line interface is, but Unix has a GUI too and 
> >when it is appropriate to use they use it.
> 
> I don't know what the server's interface for administration has to do
> with the front end styling of business systems.  I manage a team of Unix
> Admins.  They spend 90% of their day on the command line.  They view
> Unix's proprietary GUI's pretty much the same way most folks on this
> list view the iSeries Navigator.  Our Oracle DBA's spend a heck of a lot
> of time on the Unix command line as well.
> 
> You're saying that green screen is perceived as obsolete -- graphical
> means new.  I don't disagree that people feel that way.  It is, however,
> pretty dumb.
> 
> What looks obsolete is the traditional interface for the server.  I'm
> simultaneously frustrated and amused by folks who think that Windows
> means GUI and iSeries / AS/400 means green screen, because of the server
> console/interface.  What then, does Unix mean?  The various proprietary
> GUI's for Unix have nothing to do with the hosted databases and
> applications.  The back-end Windows server we all know and love today
> grew out of years of development of a desktop PC with a graphical
> interface.  The server IS its own graphical console.  So what?  This
> doesn't facilitate the development of modern systems -- the low level
> methods of access from client to app server to database server, and the
> development tools for development of apps to the client or app server
> dictate the ability to produce graphical apps.
> 
> The AS/400 / iSeries environment has always allowed an easy method for
> deploying workstations to the users.  A Windows server doesn't
> facilitate the development or presentation of applications.  You can't
> plug in card or switch on a service to hardwire or virtually deploy
> Windows sessions from the server to users.  It requires a whole 'nuther
> architecture.  Therefore there's never been a traditional Windows
> application -- there have been iterations of VB and PowerBuilder and
> Cold Fusion, and dot Net... and dozens of other architectures and
> presentations for applications.  Many of which are now obsolete.
> 
> What's neat to me is that iSeries applications create the impression of
> an obsolete system because the apps themselves ARE NOT obsolete.  Folks
> are still using third-party and home grown apps because they still run
> their businesses, and folks are still writing new ones because they
> don't want to invest in the overhead of app servers, web servers, and
> more complex relational database management.  The commitment to
> backwards compatibility is now viewed as a liability.  Imagine if
> applications developed for Windows fifteen years ago were able to
> survive the ports from Windows 3.1 on the desktop and NT on the server,
> to the current Windows technology.  Folks might then be mocking the
> obsolete nature of Windows because of all those clunky client-server
> apps still around from the early 90's.  Instead, because these
> technologies actually more honestly became obsolete, this generation of
> Windows technology doesn't "look obsolete".
> 
> The only way to make the iSeries look less obsolete to the unthinking
> masses would be to come up with an OS release which cripples 5250
> presentation.  Then iSeries would no longer be associated with its
> considerable base of stable, reliable (what's the opposite of obsolete)
> green screen applications, and no one would be able to quickly and
> easily develop new ones.
> 
> -Jim