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

Mark,

The part of your argument that I'm having difficulty reconciling, is the
assertion that some of your clients have moved to another platform because
providing an IBM i GUI was too costly.

The cost of migrating databases and applications from IBM i to Windows and
Linux is so high in my experience, that I question the validity of the
assertion that the cost of an IBM i GUI was really a factor, or that IBM
could have averted migrations by bundling a GUI solution with the OS.

One group asserts that they do provide GUI applications on IBM i. This
group tends to delineate how they do it. Another group blames IBM for not
bundling a GUI with the OS, but refrain from delineating what they mean by
a GUI solution.

Most people who provide a GUI under Linux, do it with HTML, CSS, and
JavaScript on the front-end; paired with PHP, Python, Ruby, Node.js, Perl,
or Java language environment on the back-end. Why don't they ever complain
about the lack of native GUI support, bundled with the OS?

How should we reconcile the opposing perspectives?






On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 10:53 AM, mlazarus <mlazarus@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Nathan,

You're only partially correct. The application would need to be
rewritten, to some degree. But, the additional cost of the add-on product
plus the additional development and testing overhead made it too expensive
an endeavor to undertake, from the clients' perspective.

I went through this at several medium to small clients. Had IBM
included and integrated this functionality into the OS I would have created
some standalone mini applications, or a parallel function to an existing
application, and let them get used to having *their* data displayed in a
real GUI, with additional functionality.

There is no way that they would shell out for an expensive tool (plus the
yearly maintenance!) just to try it out to see if they want to go in that
direction. There are other details in play, but that was a big part of the
decision.

The fact that we can get a GUI to display does not mean that this is an
inherently a GUI OS. It's not. IMHO, until IBM decides that it's
worthwhile investing in creating a fully integrated, modern interface as
part of the OS, this box will be perceived as old and dated. That's a
shame, because it's a real workhorse with many innovations and capabilities.

-mark