Re: Remember EGL when conversing with Sam.

From: Brian

Nice article; looks like we both read the same announcement letters ;).

Not quite. I was arguing with the people who wrote those letters before
they came out. That's why I have my strategy in place; I've been trying to
get buy-in from the appropriate people from IBM, but they aren't buying it.

Seriously, it was in one of your articles several weeks ago that I first
read the idea of limiting the number of licenses to WDSC based on the
processor level.

Yup. I also talked about slicing off a part of the compiler price for
5722WDS. And making sure they don't try to unbundle the compilers again.

I agree that a small increase in the price of WDS earmarked for Rational
is
a good idea but will this actually generate much revenue for them? After
all, how many new licenses for WDS is IBM selling these days? Isn't the
vast
majority of System i sales just replacement systems for existing customers
who have already licensed WDS and therfore are not purchasing a new
license?
This IS the case for all the "new" System i sales I am aware of locally.

Well, two issues. First, if they already paid (an exorbitant premium) for
their development tools, then why should they have to pay more now? Are you
saying you want to tell someone who already bought their system that they
now have to pay extra a la carte, just because IBM decide to go to a GUI
development platform? That's a pretty grim sell, my friend.

Second, there's still support and maintenance dollars in them thar hills.
Carve a chunk of those out for Rational as well. I have no problem with
that.

Third, there are still people who upgrade and/or get new machines. But if
there aren't that many, then you're not going to get much money no matter
what you do, unless you go back to point number one and try to fleece people
who have already bought and paid for their systems.

I still think think EGL has great potential, especially having read
comments from IBMers that it would not be too difficult to have it also
generate RPG but this experience has left me sore and more than a little
ticked off.

EGL will never generate RPG until the Rational people re-think their
relationship with the System i. Right now, the folks that are in charge of
the "vision" of Rational think EGL is a replacement for RPG rather than an
adjunct to it.

Joe