On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Don Cavaiani <dcavaiani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
We have some users who have gone looking for some outside Windows software which does scheduling for a Manufacturing plant.
Look, i have no clue of the needs of a manufacturing plants or how BPCS works.
All i can tell you that such decisions should never be made on the
platform preference of a single person, but instead on the business
requirements.
Defining the business requirements is very hard, which is why this
step is usually skipped by the suits and they head directly to fancy
powerpoint presentation.
And the business requirements are not only what the manufacturing
plant needs - it's also what the IT staff needs to integrate it into
the rest of your infrastructure. Do you currently have people with
Windows expertise? Do you have people with Windows-IBM i integration
expertise? How much money can you spend on integrating this new
application with the existing infrastructure?
Is the cost of integration significantly lower if the application runs
on the i? Is it still lower if it uses Java? Do you have people with
the necessary Java expertise? etc.
If the business requirements indicate that there are no solutions
available except to use Windows, then make sure that you have someone
with a lot of Windows knowledge. Most of the Windows problems i've
read about on this list stems from a lack of Windows expertise, which
is not a must for n IBM i programmer or admin - but sometimes the
company expects those people to administrate Windows servers too. And
especially if there is a strong dislike for a product, it will be
impossible to get those people up to speed on Windows.
Basically: Do whats best for your Business, not for the platform you like.
midrange.com
