The Four Hundred

The IBM midrange is a world of central planning, secrecy, and deliberate growth. It stands in stark contrast to the anarchy of the Unix and Linux worlds and to the unfettered dynamics of Moore's Law, driving the Windows, Unix, and Linux markets. But sometimes there are forces unseen at work in our well-known OS/400 world, with its iSeries and AS/400 servers and their predictable upgrade paths, myriad applications, and vast reseller channel.

A funny thought occurred to me recently as I was watching a key scene in "The Matrix Reloaded." What if it was Big Blue that was actually behind FAST400's 5250 green-screen governor buster?

For those of you who haven't seen the film, a recap is in order. The audience is thrown into a world that looks like earth but is actually a vast simulation. Someone called The Architect claims to have created the Matrix. Some 99.9 percent of the subjects attached to this simulation accept the fake reality. But the designers of the simulation realized that unless an escape valve was created for the remaining 0.1 percent who rejected the simulation, the whole construct would eventually fail. Neo, the hero of the story, who learns how to manipulate the Matrix, and other Matrix escapees live on Zion, a kind of sanctuary where people live seemingly freely, not as bodies plugged into a virtual reality. The Architect must neatly gather all the "anomalies" on Zion who reject the simulation, to keep them from destroying the Matrix.

While watching a pivotal scene in the movie, it dawned on me that Zion is FAST400.

Think about it. Does it make sense that we do not know the identity of the people behind FAST400?

FAST400's Web site is hosted in an oil rig that is six miles off the coast of England, also known as Sealand, the smallest sovereign territory in the world (very fishy!). But, to tease us all, FAST400 has a post office box in Rochester, Minnesota, of all places. These guys have a sense of humor.

Doesn't it make even less sense that IBM does not know who the people behind FAST400 are, either?

Some years back, I was at the epicenter of a similar controversy. It involved Open/36, a product that allowed System/36 users to migrate without any recompilation to Unix systems. IBM was faced with a massive migration of S/36 users, not to the AS/400, but to Unix systems. In this case, IBM quickly found out who was behind the product after an intense effort. Eventually IBM had to reintroduce the System/36 on a PowerPC chip, ahead of the AS/400 (that was in September 1993, and that machine was IBM's first 64-bit server). I believe Rochester has become surprisingly more Machiavellian since then.

Would it not benefit IBM to know which users are disgruntled enough to try the FAST400 patch? IBM would love to know these disgruntled organizations. The good news for IBM is that FAST400 users keep using their AS/400s, rather than replacing them with Unix- or Windows-based machines. They even pay good money for the patch. The $1,500-per-year-per-processor that FAST400 garners funds its operations--and then some.

Assuming that only 0.1 percent, to borrow The Architect's ratio, of 500,000 iSeries and AS/400 servers adopt the patch, FAST400 could gross $750,000 a year. Based on anecdotal evidence of sales of FAST400 around the world, this number could be much higher.

If enough disgruntled users protested the price/performance on IBM's older AS/400 and iSeries machines, IBM might have to change its price lists. Some have argued that this, in part, is what was caused IBM to undergo a massive repackaging and rebranding of the iSeries line last January. With FAST400 in the mix, pressure is off IBM to do anything more radical than it already did.

So are we to believe that FAST400 is a small group of rebels who work wherever they do--perhaps at IBM Rochester itself--and have somehow managed to elude IBM's internal or external security for years? Or does it make more sense to think that IBM itself is behind this Zion-like construct?

At this point, I have more questions than answers. I have not found a smoking gun yet. But surely this scenario must strike a chord with some of you.

Alberto Saavedra held senior management positions in the computer industry for 25 years and is now a consultant specializing in sales and marketing for iSeries startups. E-mail: alsaave@attglobal.net.