Re: Death of RPG38 and RPG36 -and- more!

["Jim Franz" <jfranz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> then zero existing sales minus any loss of sales is still not a positive 
> number, right?

I think it was my comment about "occasional upgrades".
Given latest sales figures, having a few thousand ancient systems upgrade 
every year (worldwide) is not a bad thing. It may be a small percentage of 
the billions (with a "B") they sell,
but it does add up. Actually the average I have seen over last 23 years with 
smaller accounts like this is every 7 years. The systems long ago were $100k 
plus, and now they run $30-80k. If even 1,000 worldwide came out of the 
closet each year and spend $50k each that would be $50 million a year.
The biggest reasons for leaving IBM that I have seen:
a) mergers or business failures or
b) the failure of application providers to modernize systems.
c) excessive maintenance fees (hardware, software, applications, tools, etc 
all added together versus replacement (and many do get the TCO calcs wrong 
and make bad choices).

Oracle doesn't play in this low end market unless the app provider supplies 
it. Most of these are smaller shops, with total IT staff from zero to 5, and 
few if any get any education. They probably don't know what an iSeries 
really is, let alone a system i ...

Now, I have no problem with IBM "pushing" sites to upgrade. I think IBM's 
packaging of the low end i5 has been great for small customers, or large 
customers using distributed servers. I also think the rpgii code conversion 
is like a bad y2k project - they are messy, with or without available tools.
None want to spend mega-bucks for an upgrade of code that provides no 
enhancements, so there is "opportunity" to bundle conversion with real 
enhancements. btw-I've been pushing rpgii replacement since 1988, year 1 for 
the as400.

jim franz


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <rob@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries" <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: Death of RPG38 and RPG36 -and- more!


> I am disappointed by this withdrawal of the withdrawal.  :-)
>
> I do find it surprising that any S/36 environment people do upgrade.  I
> would have thought that they would have purchased their as/400 years ago
> and be running fat and stupid on it.  As far as IBM fearing that these
> people may go to Oracle or whatever, why should they care?  I mean, if
> they're not spending money with IBM as it is, then zero existing sales
> minus any loss of sales is still not a positive number, right?
>
> However, someone said that they do occasionally upgrade, only just about
> once a decade.
>
> Rob Berendt
> --
> Group Dekko Services, LLC
> Dept 01.073
> PO Box 2000
> Dock 108
> 6928N 400E
> Kendallville, IN 46755
> http://www.dekko.com
>
>
>
>
>
> Jerry Adams <jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent by: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> 07/12/2006 01:51 PM
> Please respond to
> RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
> To
> RPG programming on the AS400 / iSeries <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> cc
>
> Subject
> Re: Death of RPG38 and RPG36 -and- more!
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I was looking forward to the demise.  About 70% of our code is RPG II
> (and OCL) ported from a /36 and originally written on a /34.  It was
> 100% until I started here almost three (3) years ago.
>
>
> The withdrawal would have given me some leverage to spend some money (a
> hard thing to do here) on a tool to convert the code and OCL.  It can be
> done by hand, but it's certainly labor intensive doing it that way.
>
>
> On the other hand IBM may have calculated (pure speculation on my part)
> that it would have given some customers the impetus to finally check out
> other alternatives whether those be ASNA or even Oracle or other SQL
> server.  They may, also, have speculated that it would cause some
> customers to simply "freeze" their systems at the last viable release.
> My guess is that, rather than spend money, we would have fallen into
> that last category here.
>
>
> I can't see maintaining the /36 and /38 compilers being a financial
> drain.  My guess is that there is absolutely no work being done on
> either, but Barbara could address with more authority than I.  The
> environments, on the other hand, probably do require some tweaking from
> time-to-time.
>
>
>                 * Jerry C. Adams
> *IBM System i Programmer/Analyst
> B&W Wholesale Distributors, Inc.* *
> voice
>                 615.995.7024
> fax
>                 615.995.1201
> email
>                 jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jerry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
>
>
> Jim Franz wrote:
>
> > like officevision, which ibm extended at least once, but ibm has
> certainly
> > put the 1st nail in the coffin....at let shops know what's coming. I
> > imagine,
> > till some shops woke up and checked, IBM had no real idea how many
> > still run the old stuff.
> > jim
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Barbara Morris" <bmorris@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > To: <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 12:36 PM
> > Subject: Re: Death of RPG38 and RPG36 -and- more!
> >
> >
> > rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> >
> >
> > > ...
> > > Quoting from the article:
> > > "First up, IBM says that WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries V5R4
> > > will be the last release to ship with RPG II and COBOL compilers that
> are
> > > compatible with the System/36 and RPG III and COBOL compilers that are
> > > compatible with the System/38. ...
> >
> > IBM has withdrawn the planning statement about withdrawing support for
> > the 36- and 38-compatible RPG and COBOL compilers.  If I recall this
> > thread correctly, this is probably good news for some and bad news for
> > others on this list :)
> >
> > http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/eserver/support/iseries/planning/upgrade/v5r4/planstmts.html
> >
> >   RPG and COBOL System/36T and System/38T compatible compilers, July
> > 2006
> >
> >   IBM plans to continue to ship and support the following S/36 and S/38
> > compiler
> >   options as part of WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries in the
> > release after
> >   V5R4. IBM is withdrawing the previous planning statement that said
> > V5R4 will
> >   be the final release to include these compilers in the Software
> > Maintenance or
> >   Software Subscription contract.
> >      5722-WDS Option 32 - System/36 Compatible RPG II
> >      5722-WDS Option 33 - System/38 Compatible RPG III
> >      5722-WDS Option 42 - System/36 Compatible COBOL
> >      5722-WDS Option 43 - System/38 Compatible COBOL
>
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