Buck,
You say
" We won't be converting from one to the other for any conceivable workload
unless and until the current software becomes so old and broken that it's
cheaper to replace en masse than it is to maintain. At that moment, the
rarity of IBM i expertise is going to be the deciding factor in what
platform gets the business."
No-one comment on this thread and similar debates in the last 5 years has
managed to capture this single most relevant factor as well as you have
here. It's all about the ongoing viability and maintainability of existing
applications, not new ones.
You also say:
"If IBM wants to keep the batch and interactive workload business, they need
to keep me flush with cheap, easy to use tools so I can make my boss
ridiculously happy. If it takes longer and longer to maintain my current
software base, he's going to get less and less happy and it'll always be
tickling him that he *might* be able to buy a Windows package lock stock and
barrel for less than he pays me to keep the old one running."
Even the most conservative estimates about developer productivity from
studies done over the last decade on IBM i complex systems, have concluded
that 50% of a developers time is spent on analysis. Since Y2K we have
estimated that most systems have grown by approximately 10% each year. Code
editing in a GUI tool versus 5250, project management tools, software change
management, and testing tools at best can collectively expect to improve
overall productivity of your average developer by 10%. The right analysis
tool can reduce analysis workload by 80% (I would be happy to prove that to
any naysayers).
So one could argue that the most important facet for the sustainability of
the platform is the right analysis tool :)
Notwithstanding of course Nathan's determination, skill and clear
entrepreneurial flair in building and selling modern apps on IBM i. If
Nathan were willing to be cloned, it might change things a bit.
Here is an interview conducted by a US software modernisation site recently
with my boss Mark Tregear, who has been in the game as long as you Buck, and
also talks with much similar wisdom. He really gets to the core of the
topic:
http://www.databorough.com/DataboroughTranscriptions.html
regards,
Stuart
midrange.com
