Re: MIDRANGE-L Digest, Vol 6, Issue 2589

Yep, I'd agree the GSD division was never meant to survive.

But it did and made the big iron look old and antiquated and over priced
(which it was). But IBM keeps polishing the same old tarnished lamp,
wishing, hoping, and sometimes trying to make that "new fangled
predecessor" of S/3 (whatever the heck it's called today) go quietly into
the night ! I'm not saying that there isn't a few up in the ivory place
that don't want the System i, i5, iSeries, AS400, or "System Formerly
know as the AS/400" to make a go of it, but I'm sure it has it enemies
too!


Jim Lowary
System Analyst, Salton Inc.
(573) 447-5500



Which brings us back to corporate politics. Midrange systems in general,
going all the way back to the beginning, have always been treated as
IBM's bastard child. Remember: IBM Rochester had been the company's
facility for plugboard-programmable unit record machines. When they
developed the S/3, they had been told to come up with a better unit
record machine, NOT a computer, and CERTAINLY NOT a smaller, cheaper,
easier-to-use computer that might cut into mainframe sales. There is no
doubt in my mind that there are still some people very high in IBM
management who deeply resent the very existence of the "midrange"
category. Likewise, there are undoubtedly large numbers of people in
charge of making WinDoze servers for IBM, who deeply resent that there
are "affordable mainframes" competing with WinDoze servers. What better
way could there be to kill off the little guy in the middle, than to
keep changing his name, faster than the rest of the world can catch up?