RE: When an AS/400 is called an iSeries

I, personally, am really allergic to this way of reasoning, because it
boils down to "we're vendor locked to RPG code, and this is why we're
using a System i". Vendor lock-in is never a good thing, but there are
some advantages when doing so. But nonetheless, nobody WANTS vendor
lock-in.

In my opinion, this is NOT a good way to sell the System i to new
businesses - you can use this internally to tell management that they
should buy a new System i and then don't have to switch from their
legacy 5250 BASIC/RPG to a more modern solution, or can phase the
migration from this application to the new generation using HATS, or
even a new version of the software that e.g. uses Java. Parallel
deployment of the new software solution while still using the same
database, etc.

Does a new customer know what RPG is? No. Maybe they've heard of it as a
legacy language used by some older IBM mainframes, but the average
non-System i zealot believes RPG to be dead and only used in legacy
systems. Yes, you can write modern CGI web application with AJAX and all
the funny stuff in RPG - but do you really want to? The answer is only
yes if the only thing you can do well is write RPG code (every problem
looks like a nail if the only tool you have is a hammer).

Thus, the premise for selling or advertising the System i to new
customers should never RPG, Backwards compatibility, 5250, or anything
else that is considered legacy by the mainstream IT people. The argument
should be all about the i - integration. Integrated System x,
Bladecenter integration using iSCSI, the advantages of having a database
embedded into the OS, LPARs, the HMC, running Linux in LPARs (AIX is
only interesting for legacy applications).

In general, people do not think about Vendor lock-in when talking about
Microsoft - because that's what everyone used (this argument is so
horribly wrong, but I've heard it from many different people). But the
fear of having skills that are worthless in mainstream IT is big for
anyone currently vendor locked to Microsoft. It's a perspective thing,
and when you're trying to sell something you'll have to think about the
perspective of the customer.

Or, in shorter words: the ability to run legacy code is not something
new customers are interested in. It's not their problem (yet).

PS: I know I talked about customers, but the OP talked about a colleague
- it doesn't really matter. Selling is selling.

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Michael Ryan
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2007 1:50 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: When an AS/400 is called an iSeries

I disagree. The strength of the System i is not that it can run PHP or
Java or BRMS or LPARs...those are all good points, but IMO it's not
enough. We have to show integration with the LOB apps that are already
running on System i. The combination of the old and the new is what
makes System i unique, and it's what justifies the price increase. I
can get that stuff (maybe not all of it or maybe not the same
combinations) on other platforms at a lower cost with the same
price/performance. But I can't get that an be able to run my RPG ERP
app too. We need to leverage our strengths - integration of the old
and the new is ours.