Re: WDSC V7 Turbo Boost

Aaron,

I have to agree with you there. Not only the entry price, but it costs to
maintain it. We're in the midst of upgrading our old 720 to a brand new
Power Systems 520 (I guess they've gone back to the older number, but
that's another point). We no trouble going to IBM i 6.1. But because
nobody could verify the annual software maintenance costs for the
development tools, we had to go with i5/OS V5R4. We're a long-time shop
with programs which were last compiled on the S/38. They abundantly meet
the need so what's the benefit of reworking our application to ILE? (We
have a lot of OPM COBOL--indeed a substantial amount CBL38 code.) So we
now have to maintain Heritage compilers, ILE compilers, ADTS (some people
don't want to go and some needed functions aren't yet in RDi), and to keep
me and a couple other people happy: RDi. The projected SWMA cost for the
development tools appears to be more than our entire Software Support used
to be. It's far from a pretty picture. To borrow a phrase from Joe
Pluta, IBM may well be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Michael Quigley
Computer Services
The Way International
www.TheWay.org

wdsci-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote on 01/09/2009 09:34:43 AM:

----- Message from Aaron Bartell <aaronbartell@xxxxxxxxx> on Fri, 09
Jan 2009 08:34:31 -0600 -----

To:

Websphere Development Studio Client for iSeries <wdsci-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

Subject:

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