RE: New redpaper: i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting readyfor i5/OSV6R1

I am just throwing something in the pot here, but it would be interesting to
see how much reason there is behind upgrading. For instance, how many
Microsoft OS upgrades have happened in the last 10 years vs. AS400? And
how many of those upgrade frequencies were for Microsoft to catch up to what
the AS400 already has. Then one could turn around and say that IBM should
have been upgrading the AS400 to have native GUI support and what not during
that same time.

Basically it comes down to the fact that IBM could be producing just as much
in 1 release as Microsoft does in 2 (or vice versa). For me, there is very
little reason, that I have seen, to upgrade to V5R4 simply because I am
primarily developing RPG and the only reason I would have V5R4 is to state I
am writing compatible code for it.

Is there a good (read easy to understand) chart somewhere detailing the
features (programmatical/hardware/OS/etc) that would entice a company to
upgrade from V5R1/2/3 to V5R4? The only reason I could think of off the top
of my head is runtime support for Java 1.5 and 1.6 (which is only available
in V5R3/4 I believe) and PHP (which is a fairly good reason if PHP on the i5
is your company's direction).

Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com


-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Crump, Mike
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2007 2:25 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: RE: New redpaper: i5/OS Program Conversion: Getting readyfor
i5/OSV6R1

Brad wrote:

"I would guess at least 20-30% are pre V5, another 30-40 are V5R1/2 and the
rest maybe V5R3/4. I would be willing to bet other ISVs that do support
lower OS versions would have similar numbers."

Holy *&^%. That might help partially explain why the system is not
considered modern.......V5R1 was announced in 2001, V5R2 was announced in
2002, V5R3 announced in 2004. Makes almost any other Wintel or Unix system
look like it is comparatively ultra modern to i5/OS when in fact it isn't.

Michael Crump