Re: You're all missing the point! -- RPG400-L

I was gonna just be quiet but I have to complement you on your choice of
desktop environment. It has been my experience that BSD is slightly more
stable than Red Hoax, it must be the little red devil. 

Anyway, back on topic, don't you guys see what you are all saying? 

Brad said that, and I agree with him, that some folks on this list are
twitching to see the 400 fold. For the most part it is consultants -
reason? They can sell another system to their clients and the
consultants are none the worse. << Please note that this opinion of MOST
consultants will never change. >>

Scott you said that basically you fear that IBM is neglecting the AS/400
out of existence, that is so true that it saddens me. I spent many years
trying to understand the 400, and learning to use the powerful and
highly stable tools supplied - and yes learning to love the power - that
I don't want to see it go.

Each of you hinted at the reason that IBM is doing this. Ted Holt, in
this months issue of Midrange Computing, says simply that IBM is in the
business of selling hardware and software and it stands to reason that
they will throw more resources in the direction of those platforms which
offer the highest return on that investment of resources. 
So in essence IBM is starving the AS/400 slowly but surely.

For the AS/400 to be spared the chopping block it would need to quickly
become a cash cow. Face it, there is more money in Wintel-ish, and *nix
systems. The hardware is less reliable than that found in the 400, and
so is the software(hardware vendors must be salivating now). The demand
for boxes is higher, because the number of programmers, and new (LOW
COST) applications is greater, and the hardware life span is lower than
the AS/400. 

The number of new applications available for linux is increasing at an
unbelievable rate. Literally over night Linux jumped for a cool hackers
OS to a viable corporate desktop environment. 

Those of us who have a love of the box, and a vested interest in its
future would do well to study the monumental success in the linux
community and adapt their methods to our platform. 

What to do what to do? 
It makes all the business sense in the world to recognize change and
fall in line behind the leaders - IBM has mastered this in recent years
- but such bandwagon jumping will only carry you so far. In our industry
changes are happening on so many fronts that there is no way attack them
all and no need to limit ourselves to one. GUI, in my opinion is a good
thing as far as it goes but it wont carry the AS/400. GUI applications
account for a small portion of the most popular apps server side apps -
those with a text based interface or none at all make up the bulk of
applications running today and the foreseeable future. 

GUI can in no way account for the blinding popularity of linux. Most
linux guru's prefer the command line that is one reason the command line
is so accessible and powerful even from the graphical desktops of Gnome
and KDE. 

What then? It all boils down to the great number of apps available. Cool
apps attract hackers, or hobbyists as some prefer to call them, hackers
become active developers adding to - or enhancing functionality of - the
number of cool apps. More hackers/developers mean an ever increasing
demand for hardware, thus pushing hardware makers to innovate and
compete. 

Innovation and competition among hardware vendors means that the costs
of hardware drops dramatically over very short periods of time. And then
the cycle starts all over again, but it all begins with a drop in the
bucket, low cost  software!

--
L. S. Russell Programmer/Analyst
Datrek Professional Bags, Inc.
2413 Industrial Drive
Springfield, TN. 37172
mailto:leslier@datrek.com
http://www.datrek.com
--
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