It was pointed out to me several years ago that the phrase “Mary had a little lamb” can have several meanings. It can mean, for instance, that Mary once owned a little lamb. Then again, it might mean that Mary ate a bit of lamb for supper. Out of context, you don’t know what the speaker means.

I’ve also become convinced that people tend to believe anything, no matter how illogical, if they hear it often enough.

These two principles apply to a statement I have been hearing for a few years now and continue to hear frequently: “IBM is not committed to the AS/400.” On the surface, these words appear unambiguous and even true, but they are really meaningless.

Three Questions

The statement raises three questions. First, who is IBM? Second, what does it mean to be “committed”? Third, what is “the AS/400”?

The second question is the most easily answered; my big red Random House College Dictionary defines the verb commit as “to consign for preservation.” The first question is a little more difficult; IBM is a lot of people, from Lou Gerstner down to the janitors. The last question is the most difficult. Just what does AS/400 mean? You’d think that it would be obvious, wouldn’t you? However, it turns out that AS/400 means different things to different people. Consider two of them.

The Programmer

First is the gripe of John Q. Programmer. By “IBM,” he means IBM corporate management, and, when he says “AS/400,” he means the set of skills listed on his résumé.

John has spent many years acquiring skills that are not useful on other computing platforms. He knows RPG, DDS, and CL as well as SDA, DFU, RLU, and SEU. Now IBM wants him to learn Java and Domino. John’s concern is that his existing skill set is going to become less and less in demand in the marketplace. He fears that, one day, he will no longer be an interchangeable part of the economic engine. If his experience were with, say, UNIX, he wouldn’t care about the AS/400. So, when John Q. Programmer says that IBM is not committed to the AS/400, he means that IBM is not helping him remain marketable.

The IS Manager

John’s boss, Fred Q. Manager, quit laying code years ago. Instead of juggling source code, he juggles budgets, corporate politics, and personality conflicts among those he supervises. Fred likes the AS/400 because it’s reliable. The hardware rarely breaks (and, when it does, it’s easily repaired), and the operating system doesn’t crash. He also likes the fact that he doesn’t have to hire a lot of people to oversee it and keep it running.

Fred also complains that IBM is not committed to the AS/400. He worries that IBM marketers are interested only in selling AIX and Windows NT and everything but OS/400. Unless it aggressively pushes OS/400, IBM, with time, will quit enhancing and supporting OS/400. Where will Fred’s company run those apps then? Will they have to replace their apps with a one-size-fits-none ERP package? Will Fred have to hire an army of weenies to keep a UNIX system or Windows network operational? When Fred Q. Manager says that IBM is not committed to the AS/400, he means that IBM marketing should encourage people to buy AS/400s instead of its other boxes.

The Commitment Is There

Looking beyond the words of John and Fred into what they really mean shows that the recurring criticism of IBM’s attitude toward the AS/400 is unjustified.

What John Programmer does not understand is that IBM is a business, not a charity. Its mission is to make money for its shareholders, not to promote a slowly dying collection of software development tools so people can keep their jobs. What Fred Manager does not understand is that IBM best serves its shareholders by serving its customers. Back when there were many different microcomputers (remember the Commodore 64?), people frequently asked me what kind of computer I recommended that they buy. My answer was always the same: Find the software you need and then buy the hardware that runs it. IBM owes no less to its customers.

IBM can do two things that will directly benefit those of us with AS/400-heavy résumés. The first is to stay in business. To that end, IBM markets several platforms and software to support them. The second is to continue to keep the AS/400 relevant. IBM has consistently added new features to the AS/400 to enable it to participate in the new world. It added the AS/400 Integrated File System (AS/400 IFS) to support the storage of nondatabase data and added TCP/IP communications so the AS/400 could talk to the rest of the world. IBM also added the Java compiler, Java Virtual Machine (JVM), and AS/400 Toolbox for Java. IBM even created VisualAge for RPG so RPG programmers could quickly move into the world of GUI programming. Domino now runs on the AS/400, and, thanks to the AS/400 Portable Application Solutions Environment (AS/400 PASE), so do many UNIX applications. The AS/400 world is much different from that of the B models of old.

However, the AS/400 will eventually join the S/34, S/3, S/360, 1130, and all those other computers as just another part of the history of computing. I believe that it will not be long before we see a new machine that replaces the AS/400 and who-knows-what-else, just as the AS/400 replaced the S/38 and S/36. When that day comes, IBM will provide an upgrade path for existing applications. It may be relatively easy (e.g., the S/36 EE on the AS/400), or it may be painful (e.g., OfficeVision/400 to Domino). Whatever it is, it will be reliable and engineered with the future in mind. At that point, we who have tied our livelihoods to the AS/400 will face a decision: We can shed old skills and acquire new ones, or we can complain that IBM is not committed to the AS/400. I’m choosing the former.