Slow death for the IBM i

Ken,

I have seen first-hand several companies fail in their efforts to bring a
quick end to the IBM i. One tried to move to Windows Server and the
development environment software licenses and hardware were almost as
expensive as the IBM i Development and Production combined. The effort
was abandoned. One tried to move a critical application to a Netezza
server and it was not any faster, was a single-user solution (business
needed 5), and loading the data took a month. The effort was abandoned.
One is in year 18 of a 2 year plan to move off the IBM i. The effort
continues, but after 18 years can it really ever be called a success. One
spent lots of money trying to move to Oracle and now they have been bought
by a competitor.

I am sure there are stories of companies who have successfully moved off
the IBM i. Kudos to those companies for which the migration saved them
dollars or gave them some other benefits.

Who knows! Maybe the System 38 architecture will spawn another offspring.
One that has no 5250 terminals, a gui interface, no SEU, requires
millennial RPGLE (i.e. no fixed-column coding), spans the usability range
from a single user (under $1,000) desktop system to a 100,000 user system,
is smaller than a shoe box, uses less power than a hair dryer, and <
drum-roll please > is manufactured here in the U.S.A. (OK, maybe I lost a
few folks on that last one.)

The IBM i will die at some point, but I really think that there are many
companies that still see the value in it. So Ken, you will get your wish.
It will be a slow death.

Stephen West

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message: 1
date: Fri, 11 Nov 2016 12:43:03 +0000
from: Ken Killian <kkillian@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: [WDSCI-L] RDI 9.5.1 Right-Click menu options Alt + S /
ALt +J

Yup, the migration from "IBM i" to Oracle/Microsoft/other platforms
continues everywhere.

Several of my former colleagues, continual telling me how they are phasing
out the "Punch-Card-Univac-400" as the PC People call it, a.k.a. "IBM i",
which is "too hard" to remember that name.

The other platforms continue win all the battles. Just a matter of time...

PC are so cheap! You can string 100/1000 of them together. Darn be the
TCO, just like at the price of single PC compared to an IBM i.

It is losing battle for IBM evangelist everywhere. What is the point? They
keep marching forward with conversion to "Modern" Platforms, like
Oracle/Microsoft.

A smart person know when the battle is lost, and completely hopeless...

Just hoping it is a slow death of IBM i, rather than fast one.

It is indeed very sad...

-Ken Killian-