RE: Many RPG programmers would like to be able to port their apps to other

Joel

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

Most Unix shops are Unix shops.  They don't care that much what the
hardware is.
Nearly all experiences I have had with the WinTel platform tell me that the
departments purchase which ever hardware they can get with best
Price/support ratio.

If the ratio changes,  That vendor is out tomorrow. That's all I meant.

I also understand your business position painfully well.

I live in the same world you do.   My brother in-law has ran a hospital on
an AS/400 for 10 years.  Smooth running, backups, avaiability, and every
thing.  He gets a new 30 year old boss who has the bright idea that "It's
gotta be Unix"  Cause that's what he knows and he doesn't know what an
iSeries is. Even though it has been running smoothly with no down time.....

We looked at a data warehouse app solution from Essbase.  We already have
Showcase that uses/licences the Essbase engine but doesn't support this
app.   The Essbase rep rather smugly said that they "Didn't do iSeries"
they develop on XP and port to Unix. Even though IBM is their largest
customer (who arm wrestled them in to supporting Websphere but didn't
wrestle them into supporting iSeries)

Short side is,  I know what you are going thru.  Unix is the future, so get
used to using such self evident code as

$ ls -l \**  -rw-r--r--  1 scotty  wheel  0 Dec 19 16:26 *.jsp

John Carr

<so if you don't mind please keep the gross generalizations to yourself.>

I NEVER make generalizations, or is that, I ALWAYS make generalizations?
What good are Gross generalizations if you keep them to your self?

------------------------




You're kidding, right?  I care.  I care a lot!  Unfortunately most of our
potential business doesn't.  As a little ISV I MUST provide what potential
users demand which is increasingly the ability to run in an NT environment
that has no iSeries.  I can talk until I'm blue in the face (and have on
many occassions) trying to convince them to go with the 400 but ultimately
I
can't compete on just the 400 alone.

We have lost a dozen contracts in the last couple of years because we are
400-centric which I  think represents loyalty to the point of becoming
painful, especially when you consider that we only have 30 clients.  I
don't
WANT to go cross-platform, I NEED to go cross-platform and I will ALWAYS
run
400s and RPG in-house, so if you don't mind please keep the gross
generalizations to yourself.

Respectfully,

Joel R. Cochran