Re: If there were a sufficient money stream in the "ma and pas", IBM would

Not entirely true, Dave. There are lots of places that moved their S/36 
applications inside what was called an AS/400 Model 436. There are even 
more places that still run in the S/36 environment on small gear. I've 
seen at least a dozen places like that in the past year. One of those 
shops is a department of the City of Chicago. These places don't need real 
programmers or IT professionals. They only need to change the backup tape 
on a daily basis.

At COMMON in Minneapolis I bet Mark Shearer a thousand dollars that there 
are still several thousand shops like this that won't change, or don't 
know about the benefits of a System i because their one man contract 
programmer doesn't want them to know about the system. IBM's marketing 
rules guarantee that the contractor will get shoved aside by a slick 
salesman from a business partner.

The ma's and pa's have turned their businesses over to Junior, who can't 
seem to be able to wipe his ...nose... without a mouse in his hand. When 
Junior went to business school, he learned how to do stuff with Excel, and 
that's all he needs to find his comfort level.