Re: open source IBM i. was Re: From RGP to ¿Java ?

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

James,

At 5/8/09 01:06 PM, you wrote:
> I personally don't think that RPG needs a nice GUI like others do.

 Why do you say this?  Have you gone on a sales call where your 
competition has the GUI and you don't?  I have and it's not 
pretty.  The non-GUI software barely has a chance.  That's just the 
reality for most decision makers.  They want brand new software that 
looks and feels brand new.


> In the past IBM has tried to give us this and very few people did 
> anything with it, so they gave up and how can blame them.

 Did anyone find out WHY it failed?  Was it too expensive?  Too 
difficult to implement?  To resource hungry?  Too limited in functionality?

 I'm betting that it was one or more of the above reasons.  That 
does NOT mean that we don't want / need a native GUI to make us 
competitive.  The same way that IBM woke up and included TCP/IP as an 
integral part of i5/OS or risk losing the entire midrange business, 
they need to recognize that an integrated, native GUI is crucial to 
remaining viable.

 -mark