Well said Aaron. I'm coming up on the anniversary of my second year of
programming on the i. All the programming I had done in college was in
other languages using free compilers and editors. When I got into this
part of the programming field it felt so foreign and when I saw the
pricing structure that IBM and so many of its 3rd party software vendors
use for software licences something really felt weird. Why would you want
to alienate your product offerings because of priceing issues doesn't seem
to make sense. They are fracturing their own user base over dollars and
cents. And its not like the programming community is quiet about how it
feels. Its not like the IBMers that watch these mailing lists aren't
aware of the customers' concerns. It starts to feel like bullying. They
have the customers so deeply invested with hardware and the ERP and other
systems that run on that hardware that when it comes down to the little
things (montetarily speaking) they just ignore what the customers are
saying. IBM isn't run by dummies. They know what they are doing. They
obviously don't feel its hurting them financially to be doing things the
way they are, and until it does hurt them financially they won't change.
One of two things can happen. Either there will be some sort of open
source solution that will take a large amount of these sales away or
people will migrate away form the platform. The first is more likely
since the second has very large costs associated with it and would really
need to have some seriously angry customers to do it. So as long as
customers are only grumbling and not actually pissed off then they are ok
on the migration front.
/end-rant
In closing. I love this platform. I think its the most stable and robust
system I've seen, but doing the little things right would sell more
systems. Its hard enough to convice people to make the investment and
realize the ROI before hand so why make it harder on yourself over a
couple of thousand dollars when your company does billions in business?
Thanks
Bryce Martin
Programmer/Analyst I
Ext. 4777
Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
01/09/2009 09:34 AM
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Re: [WDSCI-L] WDSC V7 Turbo Boost
I think adoption will slow considerably given the fact that there is no
low cost entry into the "new WDSC" (i.e. RDi). I still firmly believe
IBM is shooting themselves in the foot by approaching it the way they
did without even giving a single-seat-no-charge copy of RDi with every
compiler purchase. Get it into every shop so it becomes the house-hold
name for doing RPG development, and then when the shop needs more than
one license they get to get out their checkbook (but at this point they
full recognize the ROI).
A 90-day trial will work well enough for existing WDSC users to
determine if they want to pay for RDi, but I hardly believe it is enough
time for an average SEU RPG programmer to make the switch from scratch.
It becomes an up-hill battle to educate people on such an excellent tool
(which I believe it to be the best out there) when the only real way
they can experience it is to get out their empty checkbook. In the past
I have done quite a few articles, sessions, newsletters, etc, promoting
WDSC because it was simply a matter of getting through the politics and
installing it on machines. How do authors/writers promote it now that
it costs so much? I really wish IBM would have taken the MyEclipseIDE
approach of charging maybe $50/year/user and then have all support done
through an online forum and let the community resolve most of the issues
instead of having to open up a PMR. Heck, the IBM'ers on this list are
already doing that to some extent (which I think is absolutely wonderful
btw).
Those are my thoughts for a Friday :-)
Aaron Bartell
http://mowyourlawn.com
Trevor Perry wrote:
David,
Sorry - I finally realized you said 95% of THE shop.
I am finding more and more shops are getting over their problems with
the
older versions of WDSC, and are adopting it fresh. If you treat it like
it
IS new, you may be able to convert everyone over!
Good luck,
Trevor
On 1/9/09 8:57 AM, "Trevor Perry" <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
midrange.com
