Re: V6R1

On Feb 8, 2008 6:13 PM, James Lampert <jamesl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

At least IBM's better than Microsloth, which has a long-established
habit of intentionally and maliciously treating third-party software
vendors like mushrooms (i.e., keeping them in the dark and feeding them
a lot of . . . ).

I heavily disagree with you. Our Server Software runs on the System i,
the Client runs on Windows Systems.

We're an IBM Premier Level BP.

We don't have ANY possibility to test our Software on V6R1. None.
Zilch. Nada. Only for specially privileged people in the US. ANZOBJCVN
on non-#2929 systems took HALF A YEAR to come out after the #2929
version, leaving us with only a redbook that specified PTFs for OS
versions we don't use or support.

After the PTFs were finally out, we still didn't have any possibility
to actually test our software on V6R1.

Even if it we could have access to prerelease Versions of V6R1,
testing them would be very expensive. We'd need to buy a seperate
Model 515 just to be able to run V6R1 (we don't have any Big Beef
machines like others on thist lis)

Not so with Microsoft. As a normal "Microsoft Partner", we had access
to Windows Vista Betas/RCs for several years leading up to the
release. With each new Beta, we verified that our Client Software
still worked as intended, fixed any issues that cropped up, and when
Vista was finally released in November 06 for Companies, we just
installed our software, ran our test suite, and voila: We we're ready
for the Windows Vista GA in Jan 07.

The same thing happened with Windows Server 2008. We support our
Software running in Terminal Server Environments. Again, we had the
same experience as with Vista. As the difference between WS2008 and
Vista weren't as big as between XP and Vista, we didn't encounter any
problems. Now, Windows Server 2008 was available for us again, 30 days
before GA. We can now say confidently that our software works
correctly on Windows Server 2008.

Testing WS2008 was a breeze. We just needed an EMT64 capable Intel CPU
and a few disks. We bought an IBM System x3250 for this purpose. Runs
well. Tested everything. Testing Vista was a breeze to. We just needed
a normal PC.