The whole platform is legacy in the minds of these people you're
referring to.
The AS/400 is considered a legacy platform, yes. That's exactly why IBM
rebranded it as the System i.
Usually people have seen one or two ads about the System i, but have no
idea what it is. And this is where can start selling, because they don't
have a "legacy" prejudice against the System i.
As soon as you mention RPG and 5250, this changes though.
They may not consider Java to be legacy, but they're also not
expecting
you to run Java on the System i, they're expecting you to run it on
Windows or Linux.
That's because they don't know about the System i. You can tell them why
running Java applications on the System i is superior to them running on
Windows and/or Linux.
If anything you can't download and run on your desktop is
legacy, then an awful lot of things are legacy,
including the entirety of the System i.
Fact is, most platforms can run on a desktop in one way or the other.
Microsoft's Virtual PC/Server, Vmware Virtual Server/Player are free.
You can test Linux, OpenSolaris on your Desktop. You can test if these
platforms are good, if the environment you have on them is useful. Not
so with the System i.
Remember, we're talking about new customers that should develop on the
System i. If they purchase the System i as part of a software solution,
we have other problems.
It's also wonderful because some really great business applications
exist for the System i -- and those applications are almost always
written in RPG.
And what user interface do 90% of them use? 5250. It appears that we
agree that 5250 is legacy.
So, how do you offer a modern GUI with RPG? The first thing that comes
to mind is a web based interface. Have you ever compared RPG+CGIDEV2
against Java with a modern Web-Framework? These are different worlds.
CGIDEV2 is stuck in the late 90ies, while we have the year 2007. You
could also compare it to ASP.NET 2.0. Same end effect.
The other way, and this is what my employer decided to do, was to
implement a custom thin client (in both Java and native Windows Code).
This way, all the Business Logic was still in RPG IV on the server,
while the client saw a native GUI.
This is an approach you use when you already have lots of System i
skills and don't want to lose them. It costs a lot of time and money,
and needs new a lot of knowledge about other platforms to develop
clients for them, and also to implement a custom client server protocol.
However, when you're starting a new development project, you usually do
not resort to such measures. You have a look at what the platform
provides, and then go with this.
RPG does not offer a competitive development environment for either web
development, nor does it do so in client/server development. You can't
even use the same language for the client as for the server.
RPG lacks frameworks, it lacks perspective, it lacks communities, it's
developers are usually overaged and grumpy. The typical RPG developer
says "Back when I was young, we didn't need no commitment control, and
we sure don't need it today".
Because of all these reasons, selling RPG as an advantage of the System
i is impossible.
Furthermore, the vast majority of System i
stuff out there is maintaining the status quo.
And stagnation means death.
These are the things we should be working to change. We should
endeavor
to make the System i a platform that people don't want to leave. We
I don't think that this approach works well. The System i doesn't need
more legacy users clinging to it, the System i needs new customers. New
ISVs. New products. New deployments. You can't stop users going away
from a platform (you can change their numbers, though), but what you can
actively do is find new customers for the System i.
And this is selling the new strengths of the System i. LPAR, Storage
Management, Maintenance Efficiency, integration, etc. etc.
We need to upgrade all of the existing apps and get them out of the
5250
environment.
And where to?
-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[
mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Klement
Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2007 9:39 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: When an AS/400 is called an iSeries
midrange.com
