RE: RPGIII to get a facelift? -- RPG400-L

</begin endless loop>

why rename the product?  Would it not be simpler to change marketing
strategies????

Thanks,
Tommy Holden


-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Cozzi [mailto:cozzi@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 1:30 PM
To: 'RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries'
Subject: RE: RPGIII to get a facelift?


These are very good point.
I would add that if a company does not spend money with vendors or
contractors or have employees beyond just a couple, then they are the target
of this effort. Those people/companies don't spend money. In business if you
don't spend money (on technology in this case), there are two things that
happen:
1) Vendors try harder to get you to spend money.
2) Vendors stop calling you because you never spend any money.

Regardless of 1 or 2 above, the bottom line is nobody cares about customers
who do not spend money. That is, if you bought the machine and now you're
finished spending money, the supporting community will simply abandon you.
Why keep banging your heads against the wall trying to get a few bucks out
of a lost cause?  The only real reason to continue to ship RPGII and RPGIII
compilers for "free" to existing customers is because we don't want them to
"bad mouth" the platform.  

RPGIII is obviously a great and powerful language or there wouldn't be
umpteen billion lines of code running for decades that still works today.
But the problem with the isolation that well-running systems have is that it
leads to lack of interest by supporting vendors.
If people aren't upgrades periodically, then growth stops. Without growth
you die (that is the market dies). Even in 70,000+ customers are spending
money regularly, buying things, etc. unless at least half of those other
200,000+ customers of the AS/400 platform start spending something
regularly, the market will die. 
Getting people to move to RPG IV breaths new life into the market because
people spend money on consultants/contract programmers, education/training,
software tools, books, magazines, hardware, more people are engaged in lists
like this one, and the market is just more energized. 

When I go to RPG World I see a couple hundred RPG programmers; when I go to
COMMON I see about a thousand RPG programmers, when I go to a user group I
see a few dozen RPG programmers. 
When I go to a MS Windows developer conference for C and C++, I see between
5,000 and 10,000 developers. Certainly with what 40,000,000 Windows machines
(or more) out there, you'd expect to see thousands instead of hundreds.
But what is most interesting difference in the two activities is that
Microsoft continues to push its name and product line with Brand imaging. 
IBM basically tries to get you to buy into something like a roadmap to Java.
A roadmap that looks interesting on paper and maybe goes over well during a
"Yes Boss, you're the man!" meeting at IBM, but doesn't do a thing for the
market except make things more confusing.
Look at AS/400 marketing... every time they get a new VP of Marketing for
our platform, nothing happens for a couple of year, then the "big idea" is
to change the name of the platform, then the VP of Marketing quits or gets
fired. Then the next one comes in and we repeat the scenario.  Look at the
timeline for AS/400 -> iSeries -> i5  it matches the Marketing revolving
door for AS/400 at IBM.
</End going off on a tangent!>
-Bob Cozzi



-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of CWilt@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 1:05 PM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: RPGIII to get a facelift?

Walden,

I tend to agree with you....BUT... I'm getting to the point where I'm
wondering if forcing die-hard RPG II/III off the platform would be a bad
thing.


Sure, one of the strengths iSeries is the protection of a companies software
investment.  But, I'm wondering if you can take it to far.  And if by taking
it to far, you hurt the platforms future.


I say drop the RPG III complier all together.  If you want to keep up on
hardware and OS, you have to at least CVTRPGSRC.  Now, if there was only a
way to force the use of ILE RPG IV as opposed to what I call RPG II/III
using RPG IV syntax.


just my .02

Charles Wilt
iSeries Systems Administrator / Programmer
Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America
ph: 513-573-4343
fax: 513-398-1121
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walden H. Leverich [mailto:WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2004 1:23 PM
> To: RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries
> Subject: RE: RPGIII to get a facelift?
> 
> 
> >Dropping enhancements to the compiler, etc, should get people to 
> >move quickly, 
> 
> Be careful what you with for. I'm sure (I know) there are sites out
> there that are happy where they are. If you forced them to move to a
> later release/language (RPGIV) then they may move... To another
> platform. 
> 
> Look, I'm not arguing that moving off the iSeries would be smart, and
> I'm not arguing that that change from RPGIII to RPGIV is a 
> major change,
> but you WILL run into people that say "If I have to change, I might as
> well change a lot"
> 
> -Walden
> 
> 
> ------------
> Walden H Leverich III
> President & CEO
> Tech Software
> (516) 627-3800 x11
> WaldenL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> http://www.TechSoftInc.com 
> 
> Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur.
> (Whatever is said in Latin seems profound.)
>  
> 
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