My old pal Craddock, Chris wrote:
I can only add "what he said!!" There's a real schism in the market at
present and it takes a lot of effort to satisfy both ends of the
spectrum. Folks who are behind the curve are typically spending a lot
less money with IBM and their other vendors than those who are current.
In other words, the software vendors are not really being rewarded for
the effort in supporting back-level customers. At the same time, that
effort has a negative impact on their ability to deliver new function to
customers who are up to date. It may be an uncomfortable reality for
some, but vendors are not charities. Sooner or later they will all have
to make choices and it isn't hard to guess which direction they're going
to have to go in.
Hopelessly lagging customers rarely upgrade their software. But, they
continue to pay maintenance, which usually entitles them to do so. Many
ISV product developers have a difficult time convincing management to
drop support for those older environments even though they drastically
hinder current development. Typically, the guy (or gal) sitting behind
the desk, punches a few numbers into a calculator, looks up and says, "No".
Fortunately, this is one area in which IBM really "gets" it. Their
aggressive EOS schedules have been a real help in moving things along.
(Of course, this is exactly what Tom was complaining about.) By
effectively obsoleting ESA/390 -- z/OS 1.6 requires z/Architecture --
they have relieved their *own* developers of much of the compatibility
"pain" currently being suffered by ISVs.
I look forward to the day, hopefully just a few years from now, when
we'll be able to drop support for ESA/390 as well. Perhaps I'll
celebrate by opening that nice bottle of wine I've been saving. Or,
maybe I'll just go back into my office and write some code that uses
FLOGR. Of course, I'll have to dual-path the code since FLOGR isn't
supported on z900/z800 and z990/z890. Some things never change. ;-)
--
Edward E Jaffe
Phoenix Software International, Inc
5200 W Century Blvd, Suite 800
Los Angeles, CA 90045
310-338-0400 x318
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.phoenixsoftware.com/
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