From: "Ceruti, Gerard G" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I understand the reason for IBM helping out with 3rd party costs , but now you have the situation that the IBM software costs are the biggest, who do we scare them with ?.
When I made the comment that IBM is now competing with a number of ISV products, I was referring to add-on software utilities such as DB2 table editors (etc), which I think you'll find cost MUCH less when purchased from IBM than the competing products offered by some of the bigger ISV's.
Many people have experienced gouging by ISV's, so by offering lower-priced alternatives IBM is helping to keep mainframe costs under control. If IBM charged more for these products than their competitors, then you'd scare them with their competitors. But if you're referring to software that isn't offered by competitors (e.g. the actual operating system), then you have to scare them with Sun and MicroSoft (etc). That's a whole different issue than the one I was referring to.
Dave Salt SimpList(tm) - The easiest, most powerful way to surf a mainframe! http://www.mackinney.com/products/SIM/simplist.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html