RE: Moving from Green screen app to GUI because of push back

Last time we fought off a migration attempt, there was a ballpark figure for the cost of a migration. It was $20 per line of source code (although I can't testify to the accuracy of that number).



-----Original Message-----
From: Nathan Andelin [mailto:nandelin@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2017 6:57 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Moving from Green screen app to GUI because of push back

Mark,

In fairness to Tim and other folks at IBM, it has been my experience that when organizations migrate to Windows or Linux and Intel, it has little to do with the fact that IBM hasn't provided a GUI, or bundled it with the operating system. The real problem was that the organization ran into constraints within (in order of priority):

1. A legacy database (e.g. dates stored as 5-digit numeric; the list goes on and on).
2. An application architecture that was resistant to change.
3. An IT organization who failed to respond to new requirements in a timely manner.

In regard to the IT people, the nail in the coffin that sealed their fate was their proposal, or adoption of a screen scraper, and an attempt to cover up the more relevant issues delineated above.

It had nothing to do with the cost of the screen scraper. It always costs a lot more to migrate to Windows or Linux. In addition to the migration cost, the ongoing operational costs are higher.