Re: How soon is too soon? (was Re: Can iSeries Access to ACS migration be automated?)

wrt IBM i Upgrades the #1, #1 and #1 reasons my customers don't upgrade is because of vendor software that's not yet ready. Just yesterday in a meeting the customer told us "Yes we can upgrade now! ... to i 7.1. Our vendor has certified that now. i 7.2 is 'too new'" (for the vendor) sigh. Sure they don't all jump on the newest release the first month or two but there is usually no push to do it that quickly and the let the plan come together.

For the desktop though the points earlier are spot on. A business user needs to be productive. Frankly the constant assault of updates from Java and MS and Mozilla and and and is flatly annoying and counter productive! Having to maintain multiple browsers because one customer/vendor demands IE while another won't work in FF and a third requires Chrome and on and on is also a big problem.

When I talk to my customers about their desktop environment I DO push them (gently) to be on a supported release. XP is (mostly) gone now but Windows 7 does EVERYTHING they NEED. And they know how to use it. Windows 8 was a horrible distraction especially when NOBODY had it at home yet. Then this or that won't install there or isn't supported yet and now you have employees that cannot be effective and they are frustrated.

Today many have seen and worked with Windows 8.1 and at least won't freak out by the UI but like the Vista Virus I won't ever be recommending 8 to my customers. They can run 7 until 10 is spit shined a bit more.

Besides A lab or set of test machines is near mandatory to battle through compatibility and proper upgrade procedures and then training if needed. Yeah I'm running Windows 10, but not on my production laptop or desktop, only as a VM where I test things like the IBN i Access Client etc.


- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

www.Frankeni.com
www.iDevCloud.com - Personal Development IBM i timeshare service.
www.iInTheCloud.com - Commercial IBM i Cloud Hosting.

On 8/6/2015 1:29 PM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

All good points.

It just seems that many people seem to want to wait until "they have to".
I initially got that impression with your first comment about how long
Windows 7 was supposed to be supported. I've seen way too much "I'll
upgrade when they peel my cold dead hands from what I'm currently using".

One big difference between upgrading IBM i and upgrading OS's on laptops
is that today's users are getting pretty savvy. They sometimes drive the
upgrades versus IBM i developers and administrators encouraging upgrading
of IBM i. Look at how many people start reporting issues on their iPhones
shortly after new iPhones come out.

Personally, I've not seen Windows 10 and I can't intelligently point out
any of the new features and why one should jump on the band wagon.

<snip>
I contend that Windows OS in the first six months after release is
bleeding edge.
</snip>
Maybe, maybe not. Don't they normally have a long beta program? I
suspect a lot of IBM i shops feel that upgrading to IBM i within the first
few months is also bleeding edge. But that too has a reasonable alpha,
and a beta, program. Yet look at all the people still only upgrading to
IBM i 7.1. And 7.2 has been out in production for quite some time now.
Sometimes I suspect that it's because it's the bare minimum they can
upgrade to with 6.1 EOS coming up quickly on 9/30/2015.
Sure, there may be other reasons. Like that's the maximum they can run on
their old box, or some of the hardware within that box.

Rob Berendt