My fellow Midrangers, I come before you this evening to tell you that the state of the midrange is very good ... and getting better. The statement that, "In the computer world, there are AS/400s and there are inferior products." is as true today as it ever was.

We now have JAVA on the 400 (not that many people are really using it in production), we have internet plug and play (with a few tweaks) capable 400s, we have the most solid security and virus resistant box on the net, we have one heckuva database engine with solid software, hardware, good languages, good user groups, great users, good support (provided you've bought all relevant support agreements ahead of finding any software defects) and a system growth path that is second to none (eat your hearts out NT, Novell and UNIX!), and we're still a virtual unknown in a lot of the mainstream MIS world and trade press....

I further submit that IBM has forsaken, perhaps ignored, one of the biggest marketing potentials out there...the public and private education system we have of colleges, universities, and tech schools. The facts are that employers generally only want to hire a person with a needed skill set they have learned in school, a student will generally develop a skill set that they've started the base for while in college.

Lou, are you seeing the trend here? AS/400s NEED to be in colleges and tech schools. We need to have more programs like the one at Clemson where they're not only learning MAPICS running on a 400, but they're getting the skill set of a manufacturing package as well. Once you know the thought process you can extrapolate it or in a lot of cases copy it. By the way, Lou, Microsoft, Sun, and a slew of other vendors learned this lesson a long time ago. And I wouldn't be here if not for a night class in RPG I took at a local tech school while an undergrad at Clemson years ago. The then chairman of Computer Science Division swore to me that RPG was a dead language then.

We all know that hardware without software is dead. So does Lou. For many years now, IBM's tried to push hardware sales via software in the form of IRs, VARs, MAPs. [The moniker du jour was changing faster than I changed my socks there for a while. The latest is 'Business Partner'.] When you go into a partnership arrangement there is a de facto extension of trust that is perceived as being extended from one partner to the other, by the person who will be using the products. In other words, I trust IBM's image and if they enter into a partnership arrangement with business partner Vendor-X, I trust that IBM is policing Vendor-X for service, quality and knowledge. I should be able to put confidence in a company for the sole reason that they ARE a business partner...and while THERE ARE A LOT of really good solid credible business partners out there, there's still not enough policing. We still run into BPs who are selling a software package just to make the hardware margins...and sometimes the software package won't even install correctly...and things go down hill from there. The BP's shortcomings give both the midrange arena and IBM black eyes...which would be preventable with better policing. Frankly, I wish I could say they were all good! Like Ford's been telling us for years, "The quality has to be there before the name goes on." And that has to extend to vendors as well.

Downsizing has had it's benefits and costs. Things are cheaper! This is good! When I saw the prices of the entry level 600s and 170s I seriously considered putting one in my basement. (Cindy says I have enough in my basement already). Software and hardware are being sold at volume not seen before and are more readily available to us. This is good! However, I submit that we're paying the cost on the service and support side. One still can't even report a software defect in a timely manner without having previously bought a support contract. Frankly, if I have a bug in my program I kind of would WANT to know about it in a timely manner. And I'm not talking about faxing messages back and forth. But the icing on the cake was when a person called his local IBMer and asked for some product information only to be told that he didn't do enough business with IBM for it to be worth the IBMer's time...that he should go find a VAR. Have you had that problem with Microsoft?

So, what is our future and what does it hold? Well, like the engineering students at a recent Georgia Tech commencement chanted, "We've got jobs!". Thanks to Y2k, the growing install base and lack of skilled workers to fill a lot of current needs, we're going to be in demand at a decent wage for several years to come. I'm hearing stories of programmers entering the contracting world because they're finding they can make much more than the low raises that have been begrudgingly given to them in their annual reviews. And their resumes won't look like a road map. This is going to cause a problem for corporate managements who are trying to keep some cohesion in their ranks...but in the long term, I think that the concept of the contract programmer is going to catch on as not only a cost saving measure but just the only means to get timely and good talent in the shop. We all know they're not cranking out RPG programmers like they used to.

So, what do I suggest? Stay on the 400. It's a very solid and growing platform. Find a solid core MIS department and do what it takes to keep them, even if that means raises more than the cost of inflation. Your business may depend on them. Plan on supplementing your own in-house staff with contracting programmers on an ad hoc basis. For smaller projects this can be cheaper than hiring a full timer with all the benefits required. Develop your own education contacts. An increasing number of 1-day seminars are cropping up across the country to supplement the inadequate formal education in the school system. A lot of these are really decent seminars. Check out the JAM. It's the best one-day-er that I've seen and you're not going to beat the price anywhere. But don't expect that a seminar is going to replace a formal college or tech school class. They just can't.

That's my opinion. I might be wrong...