International Business Server, International Business Desktop

by Brian Kelly

These are great times to be an iSeries professional. I have not felt so good about the OS/400 platform since 1994, when chairman Louis Gerstner made a decision that all IBM servers, not just the IBM PC servers and the RS/6000 Unix boxes, would become Internet servers and functional servers in a client/server environment. Prior to Gerstner, corporate management was quite content to have its Wintel and RS/6000 lines provide the most modern interfaces to IT functions.

Gerstner rightfully felt that excluding IBM's most popular business servers, the mainframe and the AS/400, from participation made no sense at all. He directed that IBM change its posture to include Internet and client/server technologies on all IBM platforms as he instituted his notion of server-centric computing, quickly followed by the e-business initiative that made IBM famous all over again.

As I look back, I have to conclude that Gerstner, new to IBM at the time, would naturally think it was ridiculous that in a modern "server-centric" world, the two servers from which IBM gained its most revenue, the mainframe and the AS/400, would be excluded by design from the advanced technologies of the day. With the eServer i5, IBM is again at one of those crossroads.

Gerstner's server dream actually fell short of interface leadership as IBM's server modernization program stopped when the basics were covered. Neither the mainframe nor the AS/400 was enhanced with facilities that would leverage the long-term skills of their respective constituencies, and neither was equipped with a modern-looking interface. Instead, the best that both of these powerful platforms got were tools similar to, if not the same as, those used by the Windows and Unix world. Since these skills were not in great abundance outside these worlds, neither the mainframe nor the AS/400 ever became close to being darlings of the Internet.

Those days are over, at least for the i5. I predict that just a few years from now, as we look back at the state of today's i5, we will all say it was ridiculous for IBM to not have provided its best business server, the i5, with a natural GUI interface and natural interfaces for business programmers to write business programs that run in an e-business environment. The new IBM iSeries management team is as eager as all of us to remove that sourpuss instant legacy look from the most advanced business system in the world. It is going to happen because it would simply be ridiculous if it does not.

I make no predictions at this time about what IBM will have done with its mainframe line, but I see no reason for mainframe proponents having to ask IBM, "What are we, chopped liver?"

Anything can happen today in iSeries Land. The IBM iSeries management team is playing to win. They choose not to be apologists for sins of the past and keeping the i5 in a legacy computing status is anathema to their forward thinking. As hard as it may be to believe, based on the iSeries years immediately prior to this year, IBM is now more than prepared to highlight its best business machine as-- get this, "IBM's best business machine." It may be déjà vu all over again since the System/36, the System/38 and the unparalleled, un-homogenized original AS/400 had always been IBM's lead offerings in the small and medium business (SMB) arena. For those of us who have been waiting, it is a great feeling.

Among many, many others, I have prodded IBM to change its ways. I grabbed the opportunity in late 2003 and early 2004 to write a book about something that was on the minds of many of us out here working to succeed with the AS/400 platform. You may recall that the provocative title of this book was Can the AS/400 Survive IBM? The question of AS/400 survival permeated many of our minds as we saw things that just did not add up and we saw a management team that seemed to be OK with what some feared would be the demise of the product.

I sent the book to as many in IBM as would accept it. I sent PDFs of the book in various stages of completion so the right IBMers could read the book even before it was printed. iSeries management had to see how some of us viewed what they were doing or not doing with the platform, and how it was affecting us. So, this book was available in the halls of IBM, and Al Zollar, the general manager of the iSeries division at the time, read parts of the book.

I recall in June 2004, after I had softened the ending somewhat from the PDF versions available to IBM initially, that I offered a copy of the new book in print to Zollar. The book was not complimentary to IBM iSeries marketing, but it was extremely positive about the AS/400 and its place in computer history. I thought the Rochester AS/400 folks would like it and the corporate IBMers would shudder. Now, I think that it hit so deeply in the eyes that even the Rochester group could not openly embrace the book because it was not kind to other parts of IBM. I also learned that all of IBM is connected.

At the time I was writing the book, I was upset about the poor circumstance of the product. Although it was in a reasonable state of completion, I had to spend another six months editing out any gratuitous shots and anything else that was just too heavy for print matter. With the help of some great editors, I was able to significantly lighten the tone of the book. Even with that, as I read the book today, it does get right to the heart of the matter. My objective was to get my message across without demoralizing the home team. When the i5 came out in May 2004, I was encouraged that something good was going to happen, just like I was when Gerstner changed the company to server-centric in 1994. So I altered my prediction in the last chapter regarding the future of the product. Since then, as you know, things have gotten lots better.

By the way, Zollar eventually told me he did not need a copy of the book because he had been reading an online version that had been passed to him.

At the Spring COMMON Conference in Chicago, I released another book about the AS/400. This time it was specifically about the i5 as The All Everything Machine. This book reflects a number of the great things happening to the product line in 2005, and it has been received with rave reviews. That proves that everybody likes hope more than doom.

So what can IBM do today to make the product line even stronger? Less than two years ago, the laundry list to make the AS/400 product line strong was large and unlikely to happen. It seemed that IBM needed a shotgun blast reminder that it had lots of issues to solve. IBM got the message and has been tuning its all everything machine ever since.

Over the last few years, I also tried a number of surgical strikes on specific issues that needed to be addressed with articles published in IT Jungle. As always, my intentions in these efforts were to urge IBM to make the all everything machine a "can't do without" computer system. During this same period, I have also sent private memos to a number of IBM executives suggesting areas of improvement for their future product planning.

Though a few iSeries gurus and some of our peers have given up and gone on to other platforms and/or other endeavors, there are others--and you know who you are--who have been relentless in our message to IBM to make things better. The good news here is that more than ever, IBM is hearing and acting on these messages. Customers really do count.

Just a few weeks ago, this newsletter ran an article showing reader feedback on two articles related to a hypothetical, low-cost i5 platform aimed at competing directly with Wintel boxes and aimed at solving the needs of SMB customers. (See The Lean, Mean RPG-5250-DB2/400 Machine, Forget Oracle 10g. Let's Talk About i5/OS V5g, and Readers Weigh in on the Hypothetical System i5 for SMB.)

As many of you know from reading Timothy Prickett Morgan's columns, and many more will know from seeing him in person on the Industry Experts Panel at the Delaware Valley Computer Users Group Annual Conference and Expo on December 13, TPM is a strong advocate for OS/400 users. He believes strongly that the i5 can blow away Oracle-based clustered servers and he believes that the introduction of a right-priced, SMB-sized i5 could also compete toe-to-toe with Windows servers in the entry system space.

In those articles, TPM urges IBM to build the "System i5 for SMB." His ideal SMB system has a host of innovative disk and tape solutions and this Web-only server has no CPW power restrictions. It rides the power processor at full bore. As a major departure from traditional acquisition methods, TPM suggests IBM should rent the boxes at a cost of from $300 to $1,100 per month, depending on how much system the customer orders. His ideas are right on for a successful future (more like the present) war with the Wintel consortium.

Considering that IBM is listening again, now is a good time to write Big Blue or the media outlets such as IT Jungle. Tell IBM you agree with TPM, and if you don't agree, tell them what you think IBM should do to better compete. There is no reason for iSeries folks to continue letting it go unsaid. IBM has finally stopped listening to the drumbeats of the "homogenization crowd" and their eServer chant; they are listening carefully and genuinely to desires and the demands of those of us out here, like you, who either recommend the iSeries platform or buy the product. The proof is in the pudding as i5 sales are definitely picking up.

Though a watched pot may never boil, a pot that is not watched spoils its contents. IBM is again watching the pot very closely and the company is reinvesting in the marketing of the iSeries and it is paying off big time. The pot is very hot and as IBM gets even smarter, the i5 product will be as hot as the pot--even to the boiling point.

Hopefully as IBM listens more to the cadre of users who support the i5 and less to the few iSeries industry gurus who have given up on iSeries-style computing ever becoming mainstream again, the product will continue to prosper and grow. And, Big Blue may even wind up doing things that many analysts think IBM would never have considered doing as recently as a year ago. One of them may just be the Web-based System i5 for SMB--I would rather call this the International Business Server--and the other is called the International Business Desktop. Let me explain.

One of my major continuing personal crusades with IBM has been to convince Big Blue that a GUI interface and a natural Web development environment are sorely needed for the platform. Though iSeries function is unbeatable, its antiquated form has kept it from looking the part. Though I know nothing for sure about IBM's real plans, my cards and letters on this topic have stopped coming back "return to sender," so there should be plenty of room in the future for the iSeries to look as good outside as it is built inside. One might say that just as in 1994, IBM's actions may well bring us from the ridiculous to the sublime.

There is no better time for IBM to choose to act on good suggestions from the troops. So, if your submissions have dropped off in recent years, be assured that the IBM iSeries Post Office is open for business. Now let me tell you what is on my most recent set of postcards.

Don't Forget the Desktop

Like a number of industry analysts over the years, I have been suggesting to Big Blue that the company build a small OS/400 server that can compete against Windows. Yet, even I have not yet asked IBM to build the International Business Desktop, which might sound strange for a company that just exited the PC business. Today, I start to ask.

If IBM goes along with this little guy, this i5 in its smallest form factor yet is just the ticket to bring the i5 product and IBM well over the top in the small to very small business community. But, first, lets start with i5 developers. And most of us who touch the product are in one way or another i5 developers.

As an aside, I don't really think the name i5 carries much weight with the folks at home--at least not in my neighborhood. Just when I got the neighbors accustomed to the fact that I worked on the stealth IBM AS/400 box, IBM changed its name to iSeries and again to the i5. Rather than call a machine a made up name like the i5, though better sounding than iSeries, the new forward-thinking IBM has a chance to name or at least nickname the system as it should have always been named: The IBM Business System. Then, every system in IBM would have its own "nickname" and have its differentiation described within that name. So, along with the mainframe, the Unix box, and the PC-like X86 and X64 servers out there, IBM can make hay with its IBM Business System, a.k.a., the i5 - a.k.a., The All-Everything Machine, our AS/400/iSeries/i5.

In a word, the International Business Desktop can be the ultimate weapon in the future Windows and Intel wars. Unlike the International Business Server--my name for something very much like TPM's System i5 for SMB--this baby is targeted at the desktop. Winning strategists suggest that the best defense is always a good offense. Since IBM knows that it will be defending i5s against the Wintel proponents from now through infinity, it is high time to become offensive. Rather than do nothing in this war (which is to sit back and risk being destroyed by attrition), it is time for IBM, armed with the International Business Desktop to make the Santa Clara and Redmond PC technology magnates wish they'd had concentrated on the desktop, rather than taking their fight to the server.

The name International Business Desktop, of course, is based on IBM's full name, International Business Machines. It not only can be built to be the ideal i5 development machine, but it can also be a complete i5 server that could be used as a standalone business system for mom-and-pop businesses and other small businesses like mine. I see the machine being built with PC-type components and a software packaging scheme to keep its price way down ($2,000 or so with a couple big disk drives and DVD backup) With IBM throwing in every software package that an i5 developer would need to create both green-screen and Web applications, this would be the ideal i5 development machine. With licensing for four concurrent remote users standard with the package, it could very quickly become the world's best small business computer.

In addition to the natural server facilities that we would expect to find on any i5 derivative machine, just like the International Business Server, this special unit would be GUI and only GUI at its heart. That does not mean that IBM can't provide a TN5250 Telnet facility within the box itself to give a green-screen look for those who want that. The Web server on the standalone International Business Desktop could be driven by an internal Power browser culled from a mini Power GUI. The GUI would provide a launching pad for the internal browser and a few very necessary standalone professional desktop applications, without which the box would not be usable on an i5 developer's desktop.

This is not blue sky stuff. There are a number of GUI projects (more than 20) underway today mainly in the open source community and some in the for-profit software world--mainly for use with Linux. Many of these operate similarly to what is needed on the International Business Desktop.

"MiniGUI" for example is a cross-platform GUI enabler and the mSpider embedded browser is a lightweight browser that operates within MiniGUI. Those of us who deal mostly with iSeries may not know or care that such ventures are underway, but these ventures prove that GUIs can readily be made part of any future iSeries box, no matter what its size. In a PC-sized cabinet with PC-type standard hardware, functions like these can be brought into the i5 environment of the International Business Desktop.

Of course, we all would like IBM to do the best job possible in GUI and embedded browser support. If it needs no compromises to bring GUI to i5/OS, then that is even better. Unlike 1994, this is not uncharted territory. Many GUI tools based on XML or other technologies are out there today. Overall, that makes the notion of the International Business Desktop much more likely than ever before. Whether IBM decides to do it in-house or use the many options available to provide a slick GUI for a server-centric i5 today, these are not the days like in the mid 1990's when Client Access and iSeries Navigator were looked upon as innovative notions.

Peripherals and Software

All of the International Business Desktop peripheral devices, such as the display and the keyboard and the mouse could connect easily to the box via USB or USB-like connections. Without knowing what is inside of this unit, it could look like a standard PC. To build the first version of this machine and to make it a usable product for the i5 developer, it would have to provide some functions that today are found only in a Windows or a Linux environment and those functions would need to be launched within a browser or a GUI, mini or otherwise.

The short list of PC-like applications that most i5 developers would demand on their development client-based i5 so that they could eliminate their desktop Windows PC include the following:

• Web Browser--IE6, Opera, Firefox
• Word Processing--Microsoft Word or a clone
• Spreadsheets--Microsoft Excel or a clone
• Presentation--Microsoft PowerPoint or a clone
• Telnet (TN5250)
• File Transfer
• Operations Navigator

Surely you can think of others but these are the biggies. Considering that the PASE environment for years handled the execution of Unix programs directly within an OS/400 partition, it is probable that IBM could do the same or a similar thing with some of the popular desktop personal productivity tools available for Linux. Today, the unquestioned leader in this regard is the OpenOffice.org suite and the commercial version of the product, StarOffice 8 product from Sun Microsystems . OpenOffice.org is a high-quality, multiplatform, and multilingual office suite and an open source project. It is compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute. It handles all of the major pieces of office that are typically used by an iSeries professional and it is compatible both ways with office files and documents (export and import).

A compromise to have the International Business Desktop available on the market sooner rather than later may be needed if IBM cannot build this entire machine with native i5/OS facility at first. In this case, the company can build and ship a hidden Linux partition that provides many of the desktop functions as needed. From here, the as-is Microsoft-compatible OpenOffice.org word processing, spreadsheet and presentation packages, for example, could be launched using the aforementioned desktop GUI. The key point here is that Linux and the extra partition would have to remain invisible in a "phase 1 compromised" International Business Desktop solution, so that the average i5 developer did not have to become a system programmer to install the box.

The TN5250, File Transfer, and Operations Navigator functions also need to be incorporated to work with the International Business Desktop's i5/OS as well as remote i5s off in the hinterlands. The product called iSeries Access for Linux seems to be equipped to handle all of this today and thus whatever OS method is used to make the OpenOffice.org stuff work on the International Business Desktop would work in this environment also. In the March 8 edition of Four Hundred Stuff, in an article titled iSeries Access for Linux gives Users Choice, Alex Woodie offered his take on the richness of the new Linux-based iSeries Access client:

"Users aren't getting some marginal 5250 emulator with iSeries Access for Linux. In fact, the package delivers the same functionality as a standard 5250 terminal, and even sports some of the more advanced features found in PC5250, IBM says. 5250 functions in iSeries Access for Linux includes: support for 99 concurrent sessions; customizable menu bar pull-downs; macros; hot-spot support; 80- and 132-column support; auto-logon and auto-disconnect capabilities; and printer support."

Obviously, if this stuff could launch in i5/OS just as it could in a Linux workstation box, this would even be more valuable since the client side of client/server would all be able to be performed on an i5. This would have amazing long-term implications for all client side applications in making them more integrated into the International Business Desktop and its follow-on products.

Let me say that one more time: Can you imagine the potential for success a client-side i5 would have--starting with i5 developers?

What about GUI Development?

One would have to be missing from the planet over the last few years to not have noticed IBM's attempts to move its iSeries developers from PDM to WDSc. Big Blue really wants us all to use WDSc on our Windows PCs to become those future developers that we should have already become. Whether under Linux in an invisible partition of the International Business Desktop or directly under a GUI-enabled i5/OS, the client side of WDSc--with all of its editors and GUI designers and even its green-screen designers--could theoretically be deployed on this one-box development machine. Now, that's a revolutionary thought. How about an easy adoption route to the WDSc environment within the framework of the one-box International Business Desktop, the iSeries preferred development machine?

There is little question that if IBM did what was necessary to create a mini desktop i5, a.k.a. the International Business Desktop, originally designed for the needs of developers, mostly every i5 development shop or AS/400 shop would want one. If half of us acted on that desire, and say there are three to four IT people on average in an iSeries shop, the number of i5s out there in already-installed accounts could more than double almost overnight. If there are somewhere between 600,000 and 800,000 OS/400 developers out there somewhere, this notion brings with it the opportunity to make a lot of iSeries people very happy.

As a side benefit, the same basic machine that IBM ships as the International Business Desktop can be IBM's mini i5 for small businesses. Can you imagine how many of those there could be? Now, as the i5 becomes known as a not-too-shabby, GUI-based client business machine, can you see more and more knowledge workers wanting its inherent facility, speed, durability, and reliability on their desktops? Can you imagine how many units of the International Business Desktop form can actually be sold--especially if it supported Windows-style client applications? For those who would miss the Microsoft old standby--the infamous blue screen of death--IBM could provide a free, framed poster of a blue screen with each International Business Desktop as a stark reminder of the ice blue days of Wintel hard hangs.

This unit would also help address the i5 talent shortage in current and prospective i5 shops. Today's fledgling geniuses use Microsoft operating systems and personal productivity applications products from day one in their homes, schools, and workplaces. Thus, the inertia in industry is to use Windows. But, times are changing and the International Business Desktop could change the times even more quickly.

IBM is doing lots of stuff today that it never ever did before that make a International Business Desktop an even greater possibility. In the not-too-distant future, for example a game console will not be running on Wintel PCs. In fact, Intel chips will not even be in the game. Intel lost Microsoft's Xbox business. IBM's Power chips have already won the game console wars. The Microsoft Xbox is just one more turn (around the corner) on the Redmond Software Giant's road to being able to run video entertainment programs on a PowerX-based game console with three PowerX chips that the company calls the Xbox 360.

The older Super Nintendo/Nintendo 64/GameCube gamers will be moving to a Power-based Nintendo Revolution, while those PlayStation2 players will find the "Cell" Power variant--expected in the PlayStation3--to be just the ticket. Your kids will no longer have any reason to use your computer for gaming, but the time is quickly coming when you will have to ask your kids for some time on the new game console to, say, add a few hundred thousand more cells to a complex business spreadsheet.

Lots of Power Chip Happenings in IBM

When I interviewed Bernie Meyerson, IBM Fellow and vice president and chief technologist at IBM's Systems & Technology Group, this past summer for my newest book, Chip Wars, he talked about how unbelievably powerful today's Power5 chips really are. With two cores per chip and two threads per core, four simultaneous threads can be executed on one Power5 chip. Myerson gave me a quote that I now use with my family to describe the power of the i5 and the game consoles of the future. He said that just one thread of one Power5 was way more than enough CPU power to control the whole mission of man to the moon. Now, that is just sheer power and there is no other way of looking at it. With all that power about to be unleashed in the entertainment/game console industry, why would we think that a GUI-based International Business Desktop is a far-fetched notion?

Power5 is so powerful that today's slowest IBM Power5 chip, running at 1.5 GHz, can deliver a whopping 2,400 CPWs of power on an i5 model 520. IBM gears down the chip to deliver 60 CPWs of interactive power, which still gives instantaneous interactive response time.

If you do the division, iSeries Express users get just 1/40 of the power of the chip for green-screen interactive work as they do for client/server, batch, and Internet work, yet with 1/40 the power, the i5 Express box can easily support 100 interactive users. It is just so amazing it bears repeating. In an interactive environment (supporting as many as 100 users) the fastest i5 Express models run at 1/40 the speed of the slowest Power5 chips. Now, consider that Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console has 12 full threads on its three PowerX chips. It is unclear if the PowerX chips support OS/400's unique memory tags, however, so it may not be able to run OS/400, but if it could, it would very likely be a very powerful little server or desktop OS/400 machine.

Together, the unit sales by the three game-console makers,will be well into the hundreds of millions in just the next several years. That's a lot of Power chips. The old maxims therefore no longer apply. The greatest hardware processor ever designed to date--the IBM Power5 should have the "two-part" of its "one-two punch," the greatest all-around integrated pro-business operating system, modernized and repackaged to keep up with it in facility and usability. A desktop i5-like combo client and server system (International Business Desktop) may seem like a big item for a wish list today but as soon as IBM delivers we'll all be looking for the laptop and the notebook versions and then of course the PDAs. How about a GUI-based i5/OS running on a Blackberry-sized machine?

IBM can and should make its plans to build the International Business Desktop and perhaps the company should also consider using a game console frame, rather than a PC frame. There will be lots of them available--and they already support very slick graphics. Either way, PC or game console form, all we need to know is that the new IBM is inclined to do these things, though the old IBM would not have even tested the theory. The new iSeries IBM management team wants to be successful and has committed itself to success to the top of the IBM Corporation. The best iSeries management in years, the greatest hardware chip of all time, the greatest operating system of all time, and new supercomputing power in an under-$500 IBM-powered game console adds up to the right time for the International Business Desktop.

Success can no longer be achieved by thinking small. IBM history shows that, when it wants to, IBM can do it all despite the odds. Just look at Tom Watson Jr. and the System/360 and Rochester and the introduction of the System/38. And, how about the PC that revolutionized home computing? If 10 IBMers in 1980 and 1981 could take one year to build the IBM PC (from scratch with standard parts) and the yearly PC business today is more than double IBM's total revenue, it's about time for IBM to invest again in another promising venture with at least "10 good men." In this way, IBM can help assure that it gets its share of the next $200 billion dollar bonanza.

Rome wasn't built in a day. But, eventually all roads led to Rome. The early Romans had a plan that worked. So, as excited as we can be about how things are lining up on our side for a change, we can't expect IBM to get all of this work done at once. But, we should expect that IBM will plan to be as successful as we all ask it to be in its iSeries endeavors. At any rate, the AS/400 faithful should hold IBM's feet to the fire to get it done, and we need to assure that IBM keeps us informed of its progress as new and exciting capabilities are designed and introduced. Let there be no compromises in the long term.

It may have been ridiculous just a few years ago to think about the possibilities of an i5/OS that supported client functions in an International Business Desktop skin. But that was before new management moved in. Additionally, it was before IBM was really the winner in the game console race. You can bet those Power-based game consoles are not going to have anything like a green-screen interface. And, nobody will dare call them legacy!

Bring on the International Business Desktop! Why not? Let it face the world with a brand new "game" face.

Brian Kelly retired as a 30-year IBM midrange systems engineer in 1999, having cut his eye teeth in 1969 on the System/3. While with IBM, he was also a Certified Instructor and a Mid-Atlantic Area Designated Specialist. When IBM began to move its sales and support to Business Partners, he formed Kelly Consulting in 1992 as an IT education and consulting firm. You can reach him at this email address.