Re: AW: Open Access to be generally available as part of the RPG compiler

Bernd - Guten Tag!

Your response is very interesting to me. I'll have to think about it some. I hope I understand what you've said.

My first thought is, there is still room and opportunity for the smaller ISVs. I looked at your site - am I right? You have an ERP for industrial laundry control? I didn't quite understand your concern about the software needed to modernize, put against the relatively low cost of the ERP license.

Last year, as part of my task of writing an article on OA, I spoke with all 3 GUI vendors. I know a little and have guessed about some things. They were all in the modernization business already, so they should have been competition for you, if you offer modernization services, as I believe you do.

So far as I can tell, ASNA is using OA with their long-standing process. So is lookSoftware. I think Profound has taken a different direction - still similar to their heritage but different now. We have used their earlier product (RPG Smart Pages, I think) for a small piece of our WebDocs product, and that tool generated the RPG code from a combination of an SEU-like development tool and a graphical HTML design tool. The generated code wasn't especially open to modification, in my opinion - sorry, Alex - but it did it's job well. With OA they leave your RPG alone but use a modified DSPF, and all this - I assume - goes through their "handler" to go to the browser.

So I hope you will say more - you have an obvious concert - but maybe there is opportunity for you, too. I don't suggest that you try to write another tool to process the 5250 data stream - you didn't do that before, correct? Even though tools like Webfacing and HATS and Seagull and others have existed, too?

Regards
Vern

On 2/2/2012 12:38 AM, Bernd Dworrak wrote:

Joe and Jon,

if I would follow your argumentation, then a lot of small ISVs, that have done a good work in the past could close their business.
Our customer's desire for graphical user interfaces was the reason why RPG programmers have to worry about OA.
That is why I've asked our local IBM representatives for a tool, that saves the tens of thousands hours of work that have been invested to write logic that fits our customer's needs.
But how can one convince a customer to invest in software, that is needed to modernize existing programs and pay tens of thousands of bucks for it, if he only pays a fraction of it on the license fees for his ERP.
To rewrite all these things, that have been developed in the past goes beyond the cost.
It is not a question of having the will to invest in training on new methods, but a question of time and money.
But there is another reason why the use of these tools from Profound, Look etc. are problematic: most things work quite fine when you have rebuilt your apps, but you also know, that developing these apps is the major task for ISVs.
There is too little support for the concerns of ISVs.
So remember: if I would follow your argumentation, then a lot of small ISVs, that have done a good work in the past could close their business.

Bernd Dworrak, Dipl.-Phys.



-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] Im Auftrag von Jon Paris
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 1. Februar 2012 23:47
An: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: Open Access to be generally available as part of the RPG compiler


On Feb 1, 2012, at 4:57 PM, rpg400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Now that OA is free, I think it's got the potential to really be a
great tool for a number of things. Some will still see it as a way to
modernize existing 5250 programs and I don't think that's a good use
of the tool except in the hands of dedicated modernization vendors.
But it certainly has the potential to allow enterprising developers to
provide access (there's that word!) to technologies that RPG
programmers might not otherwise be willing to invest in.

This is getting scary Joe - I couldn't agree with you more.


Jon Paris

www.partner400.com
www.SystemiDeveloper.com




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