Is .NET a Litmus Test for iSeries Loyalty?

by Dan Burger

The problem is proprietary systems. They tend to make choices either black or white, with no possibility for varying shades of gray. For instance, you don't have to study the IBM iSeries Developer Roadmap to notice there is nothing in it about Microsoft .NET. Windows and RPG are like dynamite and matches. You don't want to get the two of them too close to each other, right? But if that's true, how do you describe Java and RPG? That's an explosive mixture as well.

If you look at the evolution of the iSeries Developer Roadmap, you see it was originally designed to steer the OS/400 installed base toward a future dominated by Java. Very little was offered in the way of options. Progress following that roadmap has been painfully slow. Developers, primarily with RPG skills, grumbled about having to leave procedural programming to learn a language that was completely foreign. Companies looked at the costs of retraining programmers and rewriting mountains of code, and they balked. After years of trying to push this plan down the throats of iSeries shops, a good estimate is that 80 to 90 percent of IBM's iSeries customers have left the roadmap still folded and in the glove compartment.

At the large enterprise end of the customer base, Java skills have been more readily available, but the road still proved to be bumpier than many expected. Java has been helped in large enterprises mainly because Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Oracle, and dozens of so-called "best of breed" software solutions make use of Java. It is just plain less scary for big companies to take the risk for Java projects. They can bury the bodies in the backyard of the IT budget. It is not so easy for midrange shops to be so cavalier, and small companies have zero slack for such a risk. The biggest bump at OS/400 shops, which are predominantly midrange companies that can sometimes take risks but usually shy away from them, has been a WebSphere strategy that has been far from smooth. The IBM Software Group doesn't want to hear it, but there has been more trouble than anticipated in the iSeries market. It has opened the door for Microsoft to pay a visit to the iSeries market again. Earlier attempts by Microsoft were not effective, but this time things could be different.

It's very early to predict how successful a Microsoft .NET option will be in the iSeries market, but it is clearly gaining some attention. The Midrange Alliance Program, backed by Microsoft, is small, but it has potential.

One reason is that it is the anti-Java. I say that as a joke, but many of you know the truth in it. Java is not a particularly endearing term in this RPG world. That is not to say Java is dead, or dangerous or better to look at than it is to touch. There are plenty of supporters of the language in the OS/400 world, and IBM's efforts to move more iSeries shops toward Java have yielded some results. Java is like a freight train rolling along, and WebSphere gets pulled along by it because it is the linchpin in IBM's Java strategy. There are numerous ISVs in place that want to catch the train. It is a good--in fact, a great--option for some companies with iSeries boxes running business-critical applications. The reality is that it's not the only option.

For those companies that have made the decision to move away from RPG, and have also decided that Java is not in their best interest, .NET is likely to take root. Is this blasphemy? Hardly. Is this a lost prospect for WebSphere? Most likely. Is it a shop that has bought its last iSeries? Not necessarily. But feelings run deep on this subject, as they do in all religious wars.

The issue of loyalty comes up repeatedly when talking about .NET. Is a .NET option a sure path away from the iSeries? Many members of the Midrange Alliance Program get painted with that brush.

California Software, one of the Midrange Alliance Program members, unabashedly offers a clear migration pathway. I've heard people talk pretty coarsely about California Software because its products are for moving applications off the OS/400 platform. However, says California Software president Bruce Acacio, it's not like his company goes out and convinces organizations to do that. "Every single one of our customers already made the decision to leave the platform before contacting us," he says. To cite one example of how this typically occurs, Acacio notes an instance of a homegrown ERP system being replaced by a large third-party system that runs on a server that is not an iSeries. "The iSeries ends up being sort of a remnant within the IT department," he says. "A few things are left to run on it, but a company decides there is no reason to keep it as an application server, so we are brought in to migrate those applications. These are large enterprises, with heterogeneous IT environments that include mainframes, Unix, and Windows."

One of the benefits of the alliance, Acacio says, is that it generates leads that come through Microsoft and are directed to the specific alliance member that has the best fit for the customer. "The client dictates where it needs to go, and the various ISVs are selected because they come at things in different ways," he says. Sometimes Microsoft brings in California Software, sometimes it chooses another ISV. There are other times when the customer comes directly to California Software and it brings Microsoft into the equation.

"We've seen it written in the press that the alliance members offer migration-only options," says Eduardo Ross, vice president of ASNA research and development. "Migrating off the iSeries is a possibility, and someone who wants to go down that road can find resources in the Midrange Alliance Program that will assist in doing that. But MAP is about application extension. The iSeries community has, for many years, since Visual Basic 1.0, attempted to integrate Windows capabilities with the iSeries. That hasn't stopped."

According to Ross, most of ASNA's customers are iSeries loyalists and only 5 to 10 percent of ASNA customers are interested in leaving the iSeries. "We have been extending applications to Windows and the Web successfully for years. It has not been our position that the iSeries must go, and we do not advocate it," he says. "We help the iSeries remain relevant in many IT departments."

The doubters say that today's application extension is tomorrow's migration off the iSeries, and although the ISVs that work with Microsoft take most of the heat, the Java roadmap can lead to the same destination. Java applications do not require iSeries boxes, but IBM knows the Java-minded will not become Microsoft customers, which is more or less true. What makes this statement less than 100 percent true is that many large shops where Java development is being done also have IT personnel working in .NET. Both languages are there, and companies are making decisions based on what is good or easy for them, not necessarily because IBM or Microsoft prefers them to lock into their preference.

Advanced Systems Concepts is a software vendor with an RPG-to-Java conversion tool, called RPG Into Object, or RIO. It so happens that RIO also converts RPG to C++ and C#, which is useful on the .NET side of things. Chris Wilson, director of programming and operations tools, says ASC is not a member of the alliance, but that RIO is noted on the MAP Web site. "We have a customer, H&R Block, that went to Windows and is using a Windows server and SQL Server as the database, so there is a tie-in there between ASC and Microsoft," Wilson says. "This is not a Windows-only solution, but Microsoft promotes it on the MAP Web site."

The problem, Wilson says, is that Microsoft has a proprietary solution, and to some extent this is just exchanging one proprietary solution for another. "In that regard," he says, "I don't think either side has gotten this right so far. Both vendors run the risk of alienating customers when they try to pigeonhole them into their own specific ideology. The truth is that customers don't care what IBM's or Microsoft's view of the world is. They want the best solution for their company. Many of our own customers are using a mixture of platforms and technologies that best fit their business interests."

Within the iSeries community, IBM has pounded on its Java message--so much so that vendors with another message have had a hard time being heard.

ASNA's Ross calls Java "a tremendous failure in the iSeries community," and says it has put tremendous pressure on iSeries shops and RPG programmers.

"IBM has not provided options to the iSeries community," says ASNA's president, Anne Ferguson. "It's been Java or nothing. For those interested in Web services and service-oriented architecture, IBM has only Java, and for a lot of people Java is not the answer." It's true; Java is not the answer for everyone. Some shops don't have the skills for Java, just as some don't have the skills for .NET. Proponents for either side want to convince people that the skills are easily obtained and that they are RPG-developer-friendly alternatives.

But there is also the case for the software that requires neither of those skills.

Business Computer Design Int'l is doing well with its WebSmart product. It is particularly attractive to small and midsized iSeries shops, where the development staff is typically under half of a dozen programmers. The iSeries market is broken into pieces. If you look at it in terms of programmers and development, 70 to 80 percent of the shops have five programmers or less. In those shops, the programmers manage the system, they do software updates, and they make all the changes. For them, going to a different platform, whether it is Java or .NET, is a big challenge. In all likelihood, neither Java nor .NET will make much of an impact for some time.

Eric Figura, sales and marketing manager at BCD, explains that his company wants to help keep business on the iSeries, and he likes to point to the MAP members as promoting pathways off the box. He also has harsh words for words for WebSphere, calling it overly expensive and too complex for what most iSeries customers require.

"IBM is making a boatload on services relating to WebSphere," Figura says. "The big companies can afford to pay that, but the SMB customers can't. WebSphere is not for the iSeries masses. WebSphere is the reason there is a Microsoft-backed alliance program. Microsoft senses that there is turmoil in the iSeries base because of Java. They are like sharks, and IBM is responsible."

Despite the fact that BCD's WebSmart is often marketed against WebSphere, it is part of the IBM iSeries Developer Roadmap. That's a recent and interesting development. It would seem to indicate that IBM, which at one time only wanted to talk about WebSphere, has come to some realization that other options need to be presented to the OS/400 customer base. It might also indicate that IBM is concerned that more members of its ISV community might find Microsoft a more attractive partner.

Microsoft and BCD have talked about BCD becoming part of MAP, but Figura says his company didn't like the idea that there is a group of vendors saying you can't accomplish what you want without .NET.

"The primary reason for keeping Web technology on the iSeries," Figura says, "is because iSeries shops are staffed with people who understand RPG and OS/400, and they want to use the skills they have and the hardware and resources that they have."

LANSA is another of the MAP members. According to Greg Best, vice president of sales and business development, joining the alliance made sense because the company has customers that have, and will have, a .NET strategy. In fact, many will also have a WebSphere strategy, and they will have strategies that involve both OS/400 and Windows platforms. "In our customer base," Best says, "a lot of the bigger companies are doing both, because there are benefits of one over the other in certain situations, and some are doing both, trying to figure out which is best for the specific situation."

LANSA has had a long business relationship with IBM and plans for that partnership to continue a long time. Best does note, however, that Microsoft is taking the time to understand the iSeries market and to understand LANSA's business. He didn't say Microsoft was doing this better than IBM, but this should be a concern to IBM. Best also noted that the closer working relationship with Microsoft is important to LANSA being able to provide options for its own ISVs, because they want to have the option of deploying their applications on many platforms.

A big part of why .NET is gaining traction is that application vendors are struggling to sell RPG applications. This often comes down to an issue with the green-screen interface, primarily in the large enterprise segment, and the extra cost it takes to use the 5250 protocol to access DB2/400 within OS/400 or i5/OS Enterprise Edition. Application software vendors want to deploy their applications on as many different platforms as possible, so they can sell it to as many different organizations as possible.

In the opinion of ASC's Wilson, Microsoft is going above and beyond what IBM is doing with its roadmap by convincing ISVs it will be a partner that is interested in doing business with them.

"MAP will grow because more companies that sell applications, third-party ISVs, will join," says ASNA's Ferguson. Take, for example, the smaller ISVs that serve particular iSeries niches. Let's say MAPICS, for instance. There are smaller ISVs that live in the MAPICS world. They have extensions to the MAPICS application. You will see modules and components for the large ERP companies, like MAPICS, begin to be developed in .NET." ASNA sells software to ISVs for this reason.

In many companies, the decision to choose Java or .NET or a fourth-generation language is, like the options from BCD and LANSA, based on the role the iSeries plays in that organization. Is the iSeries a high priority, or does it have marginal status? Some companies see it as an expensive hardware platform that is expensive to support, even if it does offer better administration and programming benefits over the long haul. Although IBM has taken positive steps to address that issue, in some companies the damage has been done.

Another strong factor in the language decision-making process is the simple fact that some companies have the skill sets that take them in the direction of .NET or Java or RPG CGI Web applications. And at this point in time, the fact remains that most small and midsized companies are staying put because they don't see a lot of attractive options with either Microsoft or IBM.

ASC's Wilson puts a lot of this in the correct perspective when he says, "I understand loyalty to the platform, but does that mean our company--or anyone else's company--would not or should not use other platforms? No. In our case, we will use the best platform for the job."