>> 1. That's fantasy^H^H^H^H^H^H^H list price. >I hate that. Why isn't it a "just give the price" scenario? The price >depends on my negotiation skills? Is this a bazaar in Mexico?
I gather you've never purchased a car in Peoria. :-) It's because of quantity discounts. The IBM Passport Advantage web site will tell you exactly what your IBM Direct price is based on your past purchases. (It's really very good, actually. No phone call to a sales droid required unless you want. Just log on to Passport Advantage.) How much software you've purchased from IBM is really nobody else's business (including mine), hence "$5500 or less" is the IBM-MAIN answer. Another reason is the law. Price fixing is illegal in many states and countries, including the United States. That's why you see "list price" or "suggested retail price." You are free to negotiate better prices with resellers, and there's no way on earth IBM is going to interfere with that freedom. Now, why would there be quantity discounts? Same reasons you get a better price per paper clip when you buy a gross instead of one box. So, to recap, there are at least two things that could reduce that list price: - quantity discounts (per Passport Advantage) - competitive distributors This is a Good Thing(TM) for consumers. But if you don't like it, don't blame me. Contact the United States Congress. I should also note that some of you may get discounts on IBM development tools via the PartnerWorld and DeveloperWorks organizations if you produce software for resale or otherwise qualify for those programs. Same with many participating zSeries universities if you're a student or on the faculty. >We had some Java tools (Netbeans). But we don't do Java on the >mainframe. I'm interested in that. Management is not. We actually had a >project starting up to teach Java to all the programmers. It just "died" >one day with no explanation that I'm aware of. The Windows people are >.NET only (VB.net IIRC). I think it's unlikely that all of your programmers should learn Java. However, a few probably should. Take a bureaucratic lesson from your Windows "friends" who are probably nickel and diming your IT budget to death: nobody is in the mood for single big expenditures. And here it doesn't make sense anyway. For mainframe Java development you can visit http://www.eclipse.org and download the Eclipse Workbench at no charge. This is the same workbench found at the root of WebSphere Developer for zSeries and Rational Application Developer. The commercial IBM tools take a known, commercially tested Eclipse build and add a variety of plug-ins for extra function (like COBOL development, ISPF editor, JCL generator, etc.) I'm not necessarily suggesting Eclipse for corporate development, but for learning Java it's a great way to start. >Java on the mainframe is "too expensive" in terms of CPU. Remember, >around here, "the mainframe in dead!" Management does not want to spend >__any__ money on the zSeries. We very recently upgraded from a 2066-0A2 >to a 2086-A04.250 and we are still, on occassion, running 100%. We only >upgraded due to some external state auditors (multiple state audit!). >First time I've ever loved and auditor! So you have a z890. Very nice. You can add ~365 MIPS of Java horsepower with but one zAAP. (The zAAP will run at full speed, so that's why it's more than the ~333 MIPS you have now.) The first company to put a zAAP into production (on September 1, 2004) wasn't the largest zSeries customer by any means. Just to give you an idea of how it went, now they're complaining that COBOL is CPU-intensive. You will not pay a dime in software charges for anything that runs on the zAAP. You have to run the numbers, but conservatively that 1st customer is getting 75+ percent zAAP offload. That means three out of every four Java instructions get shoved onto the license-free zAAP in their environment. If Java takes "only" three times as many instructions to get the same job done, you still come out ahead. That's a great way to lower costs. An IFL is another way. Tell the boss you want to reduce your costs. Note I said costs. If the boss starts talking about acquisition prices, say, "no, I'm talking about costs, not price." Otherwise your company might as well unplug all the telephones because they "cost" too much. The bigger impact of Java is that you just might accelerate your application development. Or at least you can put more people on the job as projects demand. There is that flexibility/responsiveness benefit. Look, I'm not trying to pretend this isn't a hard conversation in many shops. But it's the right conversation, and it's the truth. Calmly, rationally, and with the involvement of businesspeople (not just IT people), take a hard look at your costs and at your IT investments. How many headcount do you have running around patching Windows servers? How often is the business suffering because the Windows servers are too slow or out of order? How much money are you wasting month after month, year after year, because you didn't maintain your zSeries infrastructure in relatively good shape -- and set in place a modernization strategy to improve user interfaces, define service interfaces, and adopt new and more productive development approaches? Where's your IT budget going? And are there ways that IT can help the business sell more product, support customers more efficiently, and beat competition -- all with business-appropriate levels of security and reliability? That's what we need to focus on: the business needs. This is a time in history when businesses are going back to core principles, and "IT for the sake of technology" is, happily, dying. The competition is too great, and the cost pressures are too intense. Efficient businesses that deliver superior service will thrive, and others will perish. OK, sorry about that sermonette. Back to our regularly scheduled VSAM statistics discussion. :-) - - - - - Timothy F. Sipples Consulting Software Architect, Enterprise Transformation IBM Americas zSeries Software Phone: (312) 245-4003 E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (PGP key available.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
