Re: iSeries Misconceptions

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Leif,

>Anyway your comparison fails because almost every AS/400 show has at least
>one resident programmer.

I don't think that is necessarily true.  I've been working on the S/3x line
since the 70's, and *none* of the installations I worked at ever had a resident
programmer -- save one who had a part-time person for awhile but went back to no
resident programmer.

In fact, most of the shops I've worked with don't even have a resident *system
operator*.  When you installed the system, you just taught the existing staff
how to use it.

Of course, I also have spent my whole career in rural areas where businesses
tend to be smaller.  But the reliability and ease-of-use of the S/36 and AS/400
is what lets you drop in a system and let them run without a schooled staff.

I think you are underestimating how many installations run vendor software only,
and if/when they need modifications, just hire the vendor to do it, or a local
contract programmer.  Does this make the system legacy because the software was
pre-written?  Even if they are a new installation, but a package fit their
needs?

What if they installed PC's and Great Plains Software instead?  It it any more
or less "legacy"?

On a similar vein, it is also common to use the 400 as field office machine
where in essence "corporate" is the software vendor, but potentially thousands
of offices are run without on-site technical staff.

Doug

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