The Four Hundred

Charlie Massoglia is about to finish his second term as president of COMMON, a job that puts him in position to work closely with IBM and with the legion of OS/400 advocates. You might think the job would wear out a guy, but Massoglia seems energized by it. His ebullient demeanor is there, despite a sometimes-critical view of IBM by many of the COMMON faithful, who have been known to tell IBM exactly how they feel about how it treats the OS/400 platform.

We caught up with Massoglia recently and asked him the first thing anybody wants to know about COMMON: How does it get along with IBM? COMMON has to walk a fine line between being an advocate for the OS/400 platform and its ardent supporters and keeping IBM interested and participating in the things that COMMON deems important for its user group and education and training regimen for the OS/400 community.

The relationship between COMMON and IBM is very good. There are a large number of IBMers that work as volunteers in this organization. We also have close contacts with a number of high-level IBMers. People such as Buell Duncan, Kim Stevenson, and Ann Lucas have provided a great deal of assistance in areas such as resolving customer problems and providing technical support.

COMMON's relationship with IBM allows us to have input, in terms of where things are going with the iSeries. We also get assistance, in terms of planning, as in where does COMMON need to be going in relation to where IBM is going.

Traditionally, COMMON has been a hardware-centric organization. But, based on IBM's emphasis on middleware--the preponderance of Lotus Notes, Domino, and WebSphere usage--COMMON is adapting its educational offerings to reflect that. While continuing to offer OS/400-based education, which is one of our strengths, we're expanding our education substantially, to include WebSphere and other middleware. For instance, we have over 60 hours of WebSphere education coming up in Denver at the fall COMMON conference.

There's no question that there have been certain issues raised at the iSeries town hall meetings during COMMON, specifically with respect to the lack of iSeries advertising. IBM has listened to those comments. I have a June 13 issue of the Wall Street Journal with a full-page ad for the iSeries. I think the input that COMMON had influenced that ad.

Advertising is an issue because the perception is that there are few new customers on the iSeries. Wouldn't you agree?

I think there has been a substantial number of new customers on the iSeries. There's no question about that at all. I can tell you that approximately one third of the attendees at COMMON are first-time attendees. Now, that doesn't mean one-third of the attendees are new iSeries customers. But it indicates that some portion of those are new customers.

If you look at the basic education that COMMON offers, those are well-attended sessions. I gave a basic RPG IV class at spring COMMON and over 100 people were there. This is basic education, stuff that anyone who has been on the AS/400 for any length of time ought to know.

So there's no question that there are new people coming to the AS/400. The question is, are they new people to existing accounts or are they new accounts themselves? I think there is a combination of both.

There is generally a lot of talk, especially among the veteran COMMON attendees, about the state of RPG in the OS/400 world. What is your opinion of the viewpoint that RPG is a dead-end street and that IBM wants RPG programs converted to Java?

That may have been the Rochester view several years ago, but I think Rochester has seen the error of its ways. That is not what IBM is recommending at this time. It is saying there is an appropriate place for RPG. There's an appropriate place for other languages. Look at what WebSphere offers, as far as WebFacing RPG applications, without having to rewrite the applications, and supporting both browser and green-screen with the same code. Look at the availability of the CGI APIs for doing direct RPG Web coding.

I will admit that IBM gave the impression, several years ago, that everyone should be converting everything to Java, but that is not--definitely not--what IBM is now saying.

I have heard discussions on the future of RPG, but these discussions have occurred time and again over the course of my career. This [the idea that RPG is dead] is something the industry pundits come up with time and time again. There is no way that IBM would be spending the money it is currently spending on RPG enhancements if there was even a chance that the language was going away.

Look at the enhancements that IBM made in V5R1 and V5R2. We are talking about substantive enhancements. This isn't like the old days, when we had incremental RPG enhancements. We are talking about major enhancements with each release. That, to me, is totally inconsistent with the idea that RPG is going away.

Now, would I advise RPG programmers to acquire non-RPG skills? Of course I would. But that doesn't mean they should be acquiring skills with the idea that the necessity for RPG is going away.

In terms of application vendors, I think most are gaining their greatest success primarily within the iSeries. Moreover, there are vendors that have given up on porting to other platforms. I'm not saying no one is having success outside of the iSeries. Would I look outside the iSeries market if I were a vendor? Yes. Virtually every customer has a bias--a Unix, Windows, or OS400 bias. Why would a vendor want to exclude itself from those markets? That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with OS/400 or that OS/400 is in its last stages of life. It just means those vendors are smart enough to know they don't want to limit themselves to a single market segment.

What segments of the application software business are particularly strong for OS/400?

Linux is one area. There's no question that IBM feels it is strategically important. Why is that? Anything that competes with Windows ought to be of importance to IBM. It works totally integrated with the AS/400. It takes advantage of all the strengths of the AS/400. Yet it is not Windows. That's a win-win situation for IBM and the iSeries customer. IBM is ahead of the curve when it comes to Linux.

In terms of application development, look at the major manufacturing software. Geac is a player in a wide number of operating systems. Part of the reason it acquired JBA was so it could become a player in the OS/400 arena. Geac is in major development. It has a new software release coming out, and it is totally refreshing the software in the next couple of years, as well as introducing a new product it is calling Project Aurora. It's a major effort put into OS/400 development. Why would Geac be doing that if it thought OS/400 was dead?

Look at the resurrected SSA Global Technologies. It is also doing major development. A number of heavy-duty application development vendors are continuing their substantial investments in OS/400-based products. That's not to say that they aren't doing the same with Unix and Windows, but they certainly haven't abandoned OS/400.

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