The Four Hundred

If you grew up as the middle child, like I did, the next sentence is going to make sense to you. How come the kid in the middle always gets overlooked? In this respect, the OS/400 platform, clearly the middle kid in the eServer line, and I have something in common. Last week, ERP software maker PeopleSoft, said it would port 170 software modules to Linux. But only on Intel processors.

Supporting Linux is not just an obvious thing that PeopleSoft has to do to compete with SAP and Oracle, both of which have embraced Linux as a viable alternative to Windows and Unix, for midrange and enterprise customers and for some of their applications. It's always risky to add a whole different platform to support, especially if customers don't buy it. This was the case with OS/400 versions of PeopleSoft applications, and the box never pushed many sales. SAP had said that it hoped to sell 1,000 AS/400 installations of its applications when it started selling them on OS/400 in 1997, at the height of the ERP craze, just about when PeopleSoft said it would move to OS/400 as well. But it took SAP four years to get that many OS/400-based R/3 and mySAP.com application customers. The lack of interest in the OS/400 platform is why PeopleSoft quietly abandoned support for the AS/400 a few years ago, after porting to OS/400 in the late 1990s, during the ERP craze. I can understand PeopleSoft's hesitancy.

But by endorsing Linux on Intel for all--not just some--of its applications, it is not that much of a step to endorse Linux on the iSeries platform. It's all a bunch of C++ and Java code, and all it would take is some compile time and a modest support group to deal with whatever eccentricities there are in running Linux on the iSeries. The fact is, PeopleSoft's human resources software is one of the most respected sets of programs on the market, and a fair number of the 250,000 OS/400 shops worldwide would be good targets for putting PeopleSoft HR on a Linux partition. PeopleSoft has adopted IBM's DB2 database and WebSphere middleware as its development environment of choice for the Linux versions of its applications, and it has even chosen IBM as its strategic Linux technology partner to create the Linux versions of its code. Right now, PeopleSoft and IBM have committed to creating versions of the applications certified on Red Hat's commercial distributions of Linux, but support for the UnitedLinux versions of Linux can't be far behind.

PeopleSoft says that it will deliver the Linux-on-Intel versions of its applications by the fourth quarter of this year, including CRM, financials, supply chain management, and other ERP modules. This is good, but it's not good enough. While there is no way that PeopleSoft is going to do native OS/400 versions of its software, IBM clearly has time to work with PeopleSoft to create Linux-on-iSeries versions of the same software and to take a second whack at attacking that vast AS/400 and iSeries installed base with new applications. Linux on the iSeries shouldn't be the left-out middle kid, especially in the midrange, where the platform holds great sway.

Sponsored By

S4I SYSTEMS

S4i Express

Document Management Solutions include report distribution, imaging, archiving and retrieving documents electronically.

S4i DASD-Plus

DASD Management Solutions for DASD clean-up, optimization, surveying your DASD, trending and forecasting future DASD consumption.

Why S4i Systems, Inc.?

Our Customers tell us that they experience a pay back in MONTHS rather than years! And they represent some of the largest and smallest well known organizations! Here are their stories.
Our Expertise is in the iSeries and AS400 arena. Our developers and principles have grown up in the IBM midrange computing environment. Our deep knowledge of this technology enables us to anticipate future capabilities and insights into the best methods to leverage native O/S technology and deliver you rich functionality.
Our Support is something that is almost unheard of today, 24X7 access to a live person! How do we do it? Well, first of all, our client to support ratio is very small and second, the applications are so stable that no one needs us.
Our Products are highly scalable and affordable. Organizations can afford to use S4i for solving their largest headaches in a small area of their business or enterprise-wide. Learn more.

Call us 800-231-5280 (760-231-5280), visit us www.solution400.com or email us.