Microsoft Extends Laurel Branch to IBM Midrange Shops

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft stepped up its efforts this week to win over loyal users of IBM's iSeries server, which, Microsoft says, is a platform in decline. The software vendor has unveiled a new association of business partners, called the Midrange Alliance Program, from which iSeries users can learn more about the options available to them for extending the investments they've made in their OS/400 servers, using Windows and .NET technologies from Microsoft and its partners.

The iSeries is at a crossroads, says Tim O'Brien, a senior product manager with Microsoft's platform strategy group. "We look at the iSeries as having strengths, such as a rich application ecosystem. But those strengths appear to be eroding pretty rapidly, based on some things that are happening in the iSeries community," O'Brien says. "There are a number of things going on around the platform, and customers are not particularly pleased with the state of affairs."

O'Brien provided three symptoms he says point to a platform in decline. First, IBM's iSeries revenues have been down sharply in recent quarters. Second, there are fewer OS/400 applications on the market today, he says. Third, a generation of RPG programmers is nearing retirement, without a new generation of RPG programmers to replace it. While O'Brien's first point is easy to verify, the next two are based mostly on anecdotal evidence. Just the same, there is validity to what O'Brien is saying, because it is something that people in the tightly knit iSeries community are aware of and are trying to do something about.

IBM, of course, wouldn't be caught dead without a roadmap for its profitable iSeries line, which has its genesis in the early System/3 systems IBM developed in the early 1970s, and which, thanks to an advanced architecture, has been able to continuously adapt new technology, such as the AS/400's shift to 64-bit processors in the mid-1990s. Today, IBM's iSeries developer roadmap calls for OS/400 programmers--who write mostly in RPG and, to a lesser degree, COBOL--to gradually make the move to the Java language. This move has been met with considerable resistance from iSeries shops, especially smaller organizations that are reluctant to retool and retrain their procedural way of thinking in Java's new object-oriented world.

'WebSphere Devalues the Platform'

Not surprisingly, Microsoft is attacking IBM's iSeries developer roadmap and offering .NET (as well as its partners' tools) as an alternative to development in Java. "IBM is saying you need to throw away your old code and start over and rewrite" in Java, O'Brien says. "That's a tough proposition to swallow. [What we're saying is] you don't have to rewrite everything. You can extend certain assets in the AS/400, to help them preserve their investment."

O'Brien also had some pointed words about WebSphere, IBM's strategic Java-based software platform. "The language [RPG] and OS/400 are tightly integrated with the hardware, and WebSphere undermines that strength," O'Brien says. "The core strength that made the AS/400 great is being undermined by IBM. WebSphere is a complex environment to work in. It devalues the platform."

(IBM knows it needs to address this issue, but, as usual, it is moving at a glacial pace to do so. At a recent meeting of OS/400 shops at the COMMON conference in Toronto, Tom Inman, IBM's vice president for WebSphere, admitted that WebSphere on iSeries isn't all that it could be. "The first step to recovery, in my opinion, is to recognize you have a problem. We have a problem. It's too complex, number one, and, secondly, we're not integrated with i[Series]," Inman said in October. However, in subsequent conversations, IBM has said the only problem it has concerning WebSphere and the iSeries is a lack of "communication" in sales and marketing.)

Microsoft recognizes that iSeries customers are extremely loyal to their platform and are predisposed to IBM's solution. "This is a close-knit community, and they don't think in terms of, 'I wonder what Microsoft is doing to help me extend my iSeries environment,' " O'Brien says. This is the goal of the new Midrange Alliance Program, to "enlighten them about choices that exist outside of the IBM ecosystem."

On the MAP

Like the Mainframe Alliance Program Microsoft launched in September, the main goal of the new Midrange Alliance Program is to help educate IBM customers about ways in which they can extend or migrate their MVS or OS/400 applications to Windows systems. However, while Microsoft advocates migration as a profitable option for customers with the mainframe program, it is not pushing migration with the iSeries.

Microsoft's new iSeries campaign is more about educating iSeries shops about how they can use Microsoft technology and middleware to extend their applications, O'Brien says. It's about making "transitions and surrounding applications with interoperability, using XML and Web services," he says. Unfortunately, there are a "million shades of gray" in the middle, and it will be the job of Microsoft and its partners to provide some clarity on exactly how Windows technologies can be used effectively.

Microsoft will be relying primarily on its business partners to communicate directly with potential customers. Business partners providing software solutions include ASNA, California Software, Fujitsu, and LANSA. Business partners providing services include Born, Covansys, EDS, Fujitsu, HCL Technologies, and Iteration2.

While these partners have been providing complementary Windows-iSeries software and services for some time, Microsoft decided to bring the tools and messages together in a single place, under the auspices of a formalized Midrange Alliance Program. Microsoft will be providing some co-marketing assistance, and users will be able to find resources such as case studies, white papers, and other items on the group's Web site in January. For now, information on the Midrange Alliance Program can be found at www.microsoft.com/midrange.