RE: Saving the System i: Fight Rather Than Switch

["Raby, Steve" <agnictsr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just had a thought as I am coming to the end of my current contract, why is it 
that most (well virtually all that I have come across) managers would rather 
pay twice or three times the amount to go through an agency or software house 
than take out a contract with people like me directly? 

Is it;

a) The knowledge that a software house or agency can do the job much better 
than the humble freelancer?
b) Some sort of security (i.e. getting the job done) issue?
c) Resentment that the contractor may be earning more money than they are?
d) Something else?

a & b) I know the answer to, Yeah right!! c)Going on the comments of some 
people I come across YES (tho they never seem to take into account the job 
security(not much of that anywhere tho'), tax, pension, healthcare, expenses 
issues).

Is this very expensive attitude part of the problem with the perception of the 
iSeries? Is it that they cannot find programmers for the right price rather 
than not find programmers at all? I know that some agencies heap as much as 50% 
or more on top of what the contractor receives, for what? How do they justify 
that? A software house I worked with increased their prices, quite a lot, and 
when one of us asked how they came to that figure the reply was "We think that 
is as much as we can get without the customers complaining too much." 

So are grasping agencies and software houses also killing off the iSeries?

Just opening a conversational oppertunity window. :-)

Steve