Re: i5 Youngsters

On 1/14/08, Aaron Bartell <albartell@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The question is: What advantage does the System i give you when running

modern technologies on it. What advantages do you have when you're running
PHP or Java exclusively on it?

To me this is easy: I don't have to run Windows. I am surrounded by Windows

Why the System i, instead of using the (less expensive and faster) PC
hardware and then run Solaris x86, Linux or *BSD on it?

desktops and servers. They require a lot of man-power to keep running IMO.

They do, if you have incompetent personnel. Just the same as if you'd
use a System i, Linux or whatever. Many people that treat IT as a day
job work with Windows. Most other platforms have a lot more
enthusiasts (or zealots) working on them.

That has nothing to do with Windows as a technical platform, though.

Sure they have some excellent "latest features" but that doesn't come at a
cost. Microsoft is VERY famous for releasing software before it should be.

Microsoft isn't what it was 10 years ago. They remedied a lot of their
mistakes. But also, the System i isn't what it was 10 years ago
either. But they sure didn't improve much.

I mean, the then-called AS/400 was a lot better than NT4. Now? Not so much.

By the way, i've been using pre-release software on my private
infrastructure for the past few years. It isn't as bad as you're
trying to make it.

And e.G. Exchange 2007 has been rock solid since it's release.

Here's one: http://www.openbravo.com/product/technology/. Though it doesn't
support DB2 out of the box (Oracle and Postgresql).

Looks interesting. Of course, it lacks all the country specific stuff
you'd need here. MWST, AHV, ELM, etc. pp.

Our company has recently taking a closer look at Google for some group ware
stuff. We are a remote workforce and rely heavily on

I've been using Google Apps Enterprise to host my mail account for
half a year now (my private Exchange server broke during moving.
Literally.) It's nice, but it's far from the
Outlook/Sharepoint/WM6/OWA experience i get with my work setup.

I think ASP's and SAAS is going to get a lot more facetime in the future
(look at Google Docs), which puts much less of a footprint on the client
side. The way things are going, the desktop becomes simply a place to
interface all your hardware (printer, camera, external HD's, etc) vs. being
relied on to host a ton of applications. That's where having a System i

Naw. We had terminals before. It didn't work :)

seems to make sense, a single/central box where you do everything. I think
the main thing people have a problem with is the price. If the System i
could come in at $5k I think we wouldn't even be having this conversation
but instead looking for what else we could run on the machine.

The price is an important factor. IBM is effectively bleeding the rest
of the System i market out. Probably don't make enough money with
System i services :)