Re: ibm i development budget

Pat,

I'm not saying IBM is going to up and walk away from
the AS/400 (yes damn them, I'm going back to using
that name) customer base. They didn't do that to the
big banks and others that still to this day run OS/2.
There's still the occasional bit of work done on OS/2
code, but if you were in the market for a new platform
today would you invest in OS/2, or would you look
elsewhere?

Don is right. I see OS/400 being "stabilized" like
OS/2. Sure there will be a few more releases, but all
the major software development dollars are going to
multi-platform products. You've all seen over the
past few years how more and more IBM code on "our"
system uses the PASE/QShell environments. That
wouldn't be so bad if all this IBM multi-platform code
they are developing would run on "our" platform - but
as some others here on the list have already
mentioned, some are being told they need to run things
on AIX.

No, they won't kill it, they will let it slowly fade
away over the next decade or so and eventually it will
die of natural causes. I wish it weren't true, but as
the saying goes "don't shoot the messenger". ;-)


...Neil


--- Pat Barber <mboceanside@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Those are all interesting comments. Some are true
and some are half truths
fed by rumors. I can say this.

IBM has a very significant installed base of very
large I series customers.

The vast majority are on maintenace and the vast
majority have been
midrange
customers for many years.

I do not believe that a business, no matter how
stupid, will just up and
walk
away from that. Those large customers have a very
powerful voice on what
happens at IBM. They do continue to do things that
make no sense at all, but
they do continue to make money. The customers have
many dollars tied up in
software that only runs on the I platform.

Will this entire giant base of customers just decide
one day that it all
needs to
be on a windows/unix platform ? I think not.

I also think that since IBM is the "only" midrange
platform, why would
they
suddenly decide to exit that market place.

Here's a good rumor for you... the next thing is MVS
on the I Series.

The rumor mill is always interesting, but it still
remains a rumor mill.


Don wrote:

There MAY be a 7.1 but not many people are expect

much after that(hell

(IBM'ers and high level insiders) weren't expecting

anything after

6.3!)...and yes, it'll be around for a while, but

then, so are OS/2, NT,

etc...anyone wanna bet their mortgage on them?

Anyone remember what

happened to the S/36 environment once IBM wanted to

get rid of it? Or what

HP has done to MPE in favor of a higher services

generator like HP/UX?

Neil Palmer, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

(This account not monitored for personal mail,
remove the last two letters before @ for that)


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