Re: what was the single mgmt decision made in mid-1990s. period

From: M. Lazarus
I am competing against a Windows based package.

Since the package already exists, you're comparing something concrete to something that must be developed, and that takes some faith. That must be a bit unsettling.

A long term relationship with the company
We know their business

So hopefully you know things that are missing from the package that they need, something that adds distinct value.

They already own their iSeries hardware and software

Hardware has become somewhat a commodity. But what about their database? Does it serve them well? If so, that could work to your advantage. It can be pretty disruptive to yank an entire database and replace it with a package. Contrast that with the option of incremental application replacement, while retaining their database.

They recognize the stability of the iSeries and i5/OS

That's good.

developing a brand new system that looks "old" is a major
strike coming right out of the gate.

Maybe I can help there. I'm good at cranking out new RPG / HTML / JavaScript based applications, if you'd be interested in collaborating with systems analysis, business rules, and whatever else they may need.

Otherwise you're probably aware of Webfacing, HATS, CGIDEV2, EGL, Websmart, Valence, Lansa, and other promising tools available.

The decision makers at IBM just don't seem to get it.

After 10 years of RPG programmers continuously calling for a native GUI I'm sure they got the message, but they still seem to be backing J2EE tools and interfaces, and more recently - PHP, instead.

And IBM has transformed into an application development/services company themselves. I'm sure their priorities are well defined and their strategy is well thought out. They seem to be okay with declining hardware / OS revenue, as long as application & service revenue goes up.