Lawson S3 Is Already 64-Bit on i5/OS, Like All System i Apps
November 27, 2007 Alex Woodie
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A month ago, we ran a story in this newsletter about how Lawson Software had finished converting its S3 suite of ERP application to run in 64-bit mode on Unix operating systems, but how the i5/OS operating system would have to wait a while longer. As it turns out, S3 was already running as 64-bits on i5/OS, providing a lesson for both Lawson and IT Jungle on the architecture of the System i. In early October, Lawson announced that Lawson 9–another name for S3, which stands for “staff, source, and serve”–was available to run in 64-bit mode on the AIX and HP-UX operating systems. When IT Jungle contacted Lawson about 64-bit support on other operating systems, such as i5/OS (which makes up just a fraction of S3 sales), the company’s spokesman told us that 64-bit support was in the works. “We will be rolling out support for 64-bit applications on the i5/OS, Windows, and Sun Solaris platforms in the future,” Ken Munson, marketing director with Lawson’s public services and technology business, stated in an e-mail. Soon after we published that story, the complaints came rolling in. “All i5/OS applications are inherently 64-bit,” the System i experts said. As it turns out, that’s true, and we should have known it from the beginning. Munson probably should have known it too, and he admitted his mistake. “I just totally misunderstood something that our product development and our development team thought they had told me,” he said in an interview. “And as I relayed that to you, it was just a total misunderstanding on my part. I apologize for that.” No doubt, the i5/OS is a strange animal–but in a good way. After all, what other operating system runs exclusively on 64-bit hardware, and automatically turns any applications compiled for its operating system into 64-bit applications. As the rest of the industry–namely, Wintel–comes up to speed on 64-bit computing, IBM should be making it loud and clear that i5/OS has been 64-bit enabled for a long, long time. RELATED STORY Lawson Rolls Out 64-Bit ERP for Unix, But Not for i5/OS
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