Since this is going to be distributed to not only WAM, but at COMMON in a couple of months and undoubtedly IBM and the rest of the Midrange world I should start with a caveat: I firmly, sans reservation, believe that the AS/400 product line is the best, most solid box, supported in my opinion by some of the most talented folks, producing the highest quality system available to users right now. Period.

Having said that, I am bound to reveal that once again, there are some strange facts of nature that do indeed defy the laws of logic, as we know them. Let’s ask ourselves: What system is in use from Mongolia to MTV, from Tokyo to Toys R Us, from Cairo to Color Me Beautiful, from Paris to the Peabody? Well, Mr. Spock, can you say the AS/400? So, then why is it that this system appears to continue to defy logic, by being known to all but the IBM marketing staff? Why is it that while everyone in the known world fully knows about this product line, IBM continues to not talk about it?

Folks, clearly we have a product perception problem. Further, if you were to ask folks on Wall Street, they’re apt to tell you that it’s an old product of IBM’s that doesn’t really contribute to the bottom line and should have been discarded long ago. I’ve had that said to me! And, at COMMON’s “Sound off” session, people remind IBM relentlessly that they’re system is unknown to new CIO’s, new consulting groups, etc., and that they are losing their systems to other brands “because they don’t know about the 400!”. Heck, after the last COMMON’s Sound off in which a person told Walt Ling that they were losing about 60 CPU’s because the new CIO was convinced NT and weenie boxes were better and thought 400’s were non-players in serious IS, I was stunned. Perhaps even more so when Ling just seemed to take it in stride as if it were an every day event. Perhaps it is. Ya know, I think it’s about time to say “Scottie, beam me up please. There’s no intelligent life here.”!

And, if you want to see something even more interesting, go watch as all the URL names get reserved in Internet space. Just for the heck of it, go to www.networksolutions.com and do a "who is" on i500*. Then let your little minds go wild and start picking logical progression names…you’ll find that most of them are already taken…many by someone other than the person that would be the logical progression name holder.

OK, there are those that say, "What do I care? As long as my RPG programs run and the O/S is still there what’s the big deal?" Well, if the company you’re working for now is the best thing since canned beer and Whitehouse interns, then I’d say, OK, you’re lucky. But for the rest of us, it’s important that there be more than one system available in the world and that at least one of them run what is now OS/400…. just in case we decide on a career change and don’t want to retrain to become a eunuchs weenie…. There’s the simple issue of once the 400’s are gone, we’re going to be stuck working on boxes like NT. You’ll notice that 400’s don’t come with the “ALT-CTL-DEL” keystroke function documented in any of the manuals. For good reason, you don’t need it! (Lou, are you back to cookie crackers or do you really have a clue as to how nice these things are!?)

There are basically two schools of thought as to what the state of the Midrange is right now. The first school is comprised of current users. The second school is comprised of everyone else.

To those of us in the Midrange choir, there IS nothing else. Many of us say that because we know it’s a solid machine. Yes, we'd like to see more features, options and functionality and the Microsoft world is basically leading the way in terms of what we need functional equivalents of. Do you remember when that wasn’t the case?

However, more of us are seeing our systems supplanted by generic or other brand servers that have something to do with either Unix or some o/s from Billionaire Bill (BB). And, it’s a fairly common statement at COMMON to hear the hue and cry of fellow users lamenting the fact that some weenie (Unix based) or BB based system is kicking out their 400! And, in spite of many best attempts, management doesn’t believe in the Midrange.

Want another kick in the head? Call your broker, ask for the analyst that follows IBM, and then ask this analyst what they think of the AS/400 product line. Make sure you have a good supply of Jack Daniels set in before you do. More cases than not, the big financial house analyst will tell you that the 400 product line is a washed up has been…

IBM’s lack of product recognition marketing is just brazenly bazaar! To see IBM put multicolor adverts in nationwide publications that promote operating systems built by Billionaire Bill, which we know to be about as stable as most isotopes as U-235 (well, maybe not that bad), is just mind boggling.

COMMON and other 400 based user group and educational systems are seeing a decline in recent attendance. Rumors persist that the midrange division sales aren’t the best. Well, geezuz Louise! Is it any wonder? Hey, Tom, Walt…if your boss INSISTS on telling people to buy weenie and NT based boxes and INSISTS on keeping this great product line as a top secret black box (with red or yellow stripe), one has to ask, “how current are your résumé's?” If nobody has the information and confidence to buy these things, you’re not going to have anyone to sell them to, and you’ll be soon out of a job…and we’ll be stuck on those damn weenie boxes and Billionaire Bill Boondoggles! If that won’t get you religion, nothing will!

Now, if you’ve survived this far through my tirade, there is a small silver lining to this huge gray cloud. V5R1. Coming next summer to an AS/400 near you or whatever they’ll have renamed the stuff to by this October. I’m hearing some REALLY nice stuff about some nice language enhancements, major security rewrites, and other goodies that the non-event of V4R5 paved the path for. I still can’t figure why I got calls from IBM’ers insisting that I mega hype the surprisingly timed v4r5 as the best things since ’88. Guys, there was some nice DASD and plumbing enhancements, but best thing since ’88? GIMME A BREAK! If it had been THAT great, you'd have heard about it as far in advance as you did Silverlake…kind of like the Iseries now!

What WAS nice was the new webcasting and teleconferences for the announcement! If this is a taste of things to come, this is indeed goodness that should continue!

Oh, and another rumor that I'd like to believe, but won’t until I see it is that you’ll see a lot of the JAVA functionality starting to be introduced into languages like RPG. The rumored reason is that Sun and IBM really hate each other when it comes to JAVA. So, IBM decided to put the stuff elsewhere…now, warning, this is only a rumor and I’ll only believe it when I see it!

Oh, two more things to leave you either salivating or groaning: At the V4R5 announcement, we were told to get ready for Windows running NATIVE (as in NON-FSIOP!) on the “400” platform. Also, we were teased with the prospect that Frank Soltis’s idea of a 400 running on a PCMCIA card in a ThinkPad, is coming to a ThinkPad near you…. but then, considering that has taken me 3 months to get the ThinkPad I’m writing this on , you should either get your order in now or just plan on waiting.

What does the crystal ball say? Well, bluntly, Frank’s great system is in a death spiral due to lack of marketing and product awareness. Frank Soltis and associates did the world and our industry a BIG favor by bringing this architecture to market. Now, it would appear that Lou would rather make cookies…. and perhaps should. Can it be saved? Perhaps. It all depends… But, IBM is going to have to depend on more than just “business partners” to spread the good word. They’re going to have to actually put the good word in print, on the net and in the air! And it’s going to have to look like the air over London during a WWII air raid.

And, speaking of business partners, as you’ll recall, I’ve not been impressed with the lack of IBM quality control in that department. Nothing in my opinion has changed.

As you go through expos like the great one at COMMON, you’re undoubtedly going to be confronted with a scenario like: “HI, I’m Joe Greaseball from Vaporware Systems. We’re an IBM BUSINESS PARTNER”. You’ll notice that they’re going to put super emphases on the fact that they're a business partner. Now, I want you to do me a favor: look “Joe” right in the eye and ask him/her “what does that mean for me? Does that mean that IBM will provide full faith and confidence in your product and will support me if your software turns to mush or better yet, does significant damage to my businesses means of producing product and making a profit?” The answer of course is no. Being a business partner basically means that a vendor can sell you hardware and services which historically have been only available via IBM. Further it means that the old adage of “caveat emptor” is still very full in force and that if indeed you do have a problem with a vendor that’s a BP, don’t call IBM…UNLESS the hardware or software doesn’t work, they’re probably not going to care. This is a bug that still needs fixing.

And that’s the way it is, August 2000, the year that we in the industry survived those clueless, talking head, idiots in the press telling us that Y2K was a non-event. The rest is just my opinion, subject to being modified once I wake up and they tell me that there really IS an IBM marketing department...

Editors Note: This is the third Year Don has written The State of the Midrange Article.