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

Booth,

An ERP system? Have you seen what's out there that software vendors are competing with? Many moons ago the PC based systems had plenty of glitz, but often lacked enough substance and stability to be a serious contender. Today that is no longer necessarily the case at all. They have the flexibility, robustness and looks that is quite expensive to implement on the i.

Adding an expensive development tool (in some cases it's tens of thousands of dollars, plus yearly maintenance) to handle the "behind the scenes GUI plumbing" is a non-starter. We cannot be competitive. It is my personal opinion that this GUI plumbing should (or should have) been supplied by IBM. No one would have realistically dreamed of replacing the tightly integrated 5250 data stream for their own. Why should it be different for HTML? Just because an API came out allowing some to tap into it?

We can go around and around with this argument. I'm just reporting my experiences with several clients (and a few potential clients) that have jumped ship or are in the midst of doing that. This was a big sticking point.

-mark

On 12/13/2017 2:50 PM, Booth Martin wrote:

What would be an example of an application where you needed a third-party product in order to modernize? I ask because I challenge that idea. I believe we already have the tools. Right now. Today. and yesterday.


On 12/13/2017 11:53 AM, mlazarus 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