Re: Calling names - System i5

Here is an off-the-wall observation that is, to me, significant.

The IBM midrange platform is about everything *except* the user interface. All the fancy new stuff that we hear and see is *only* about the user interface. It is two very different topics.
What does it mean? I have no real idea. However I do believe that at some point business people are going to figure out that they need more than a pretty face on their applications.

Lukas Beeler wrote:

On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Booth Martin <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I sure wish we had some sort of facts though. Is our platform dying?
Or is that just the same rumor from the 1980s, and 1990s, coming around
again?

Just look at the average age of people with i5/OS qualifications.

Look how many new i5/OS users you see on this list (when was the last
post here in the style of "we just bought or first i and have problem
X"?

How many new ISVs that release end-user products do you see?

How many current-generation applications for the System i are being released?

How much effort do you see to bring new ISVs to the System i?

There are still many people using the System i. Enough of them so that
IBM still moves i5/OS forward and provides new features for it. This
is a good thing.

But the influx of new customers is very, very low. Lower than the
number of customers migrating away from the platform.

So, what is happening right now is that the platform is in a (slow)
downward spiral - less customers - less improvements - less customers
etc.

Will the System i still be around in 5 years? I'm no IBM exec, but i
would strongly think so. As long as they're earning money with it,
they'll continue supporting and selling it. But as the situation is
right now, the moment where they'll start losing money on the platform
will come. It's just a question of when.