IBM iSeries Customers in Religious Battle: Java or .Net?

Here's a mature platform with an admirable pedigree: the IBM AS/400 nee iSeries. With several hundred thousand installed in an 18 year architectural life, the iSeries is still alive -- if not kicking -- after 18 years while former competitors like the DEC VAX are on the way to the computer dustbin.

What's interesting is how many iSeries sites are "RPG locked in amber", unable or unwilling to move up the modernity curve with an object-oriented development environment (OODE) such as Java or .Net. By not moving, iSeries shops become a (still modest) risk to IBM that they will be poached by a competitor, likely a more open platform with, say, industry-standard servers and Linux or Windows Server. But moving to a new OODE is beyond the training budget and sometimes the skill set of many iSeries shops. In essence, these shirt-sleeves shops have no time or dollars to go learn a new OODE, let alone migrate the shop to a new software application set. In this scenario, IBM loses the opportunity to sell its Java-core Websphere suite. Microsoft too has a tough sell as the essence of the business proposition is "surround with Windows and then migrate".

Why care? The iSeries is a multi-billion dollar global market. It won't run green-screen applications with RPG forever. Tried to hire an RPG programmer out of college recently? They do not exist. Therefore, iSeries shops must change eventually. IBM and Microsoft are jousting over these customers by playing OODE religion cards to get at the software heart and souls of the iSeries market.

Peter S. Kastner