Happy 21st Birthday

This past weekend we celebrated the 21st birthday of our youngest son, David. These days celebrating a 21st in Canada is really no more significant than any other birthday, since there is nothing new you can legally do as a result. Unlike the U.S., Canada's legal drinking age is 19 in Ontario and 18 in more enlightened provinces such as Quebec.

But we all share a dear friend that just turned 21 and could now legally have a celebratory drink in the U.S., so here's raising a glass to IBM i--the system christened with the name AS/400 and which has subsequently gone through more name changes (but let's not go there again). In reality, computer years are probably closer to dog years than human years, and therefore our beloved system has probably just turned 147! What's even more remarkable is that the underlying principles behind the system are even older, since they were established by the System/38, which was launched in 1979, making our friend 210 years old!

In a time when the lives of most computer systems are measured in single digits, this is truly a remarkable achievement. Think about it, when the System/38 came out there was enormous competition in the midrange arena. Systems from companies like Data General, Digital Equipment (DEC), Hewlett Packard (HP), Singer Business Machines and many more all contested strongly in the small-to-medium business sector. To our knowledge of all of these only the IBM i remains.

So the system must have something going for it but, as we've noted before, one of our biggest strengths (software that ran 20-plus years ago still runs) is also one of our biggest weaknesses. But as we take steps to deal with this, we can at least take comfort from the fact that we are not alone.

While we were preparing this week's blog, Jon happened to read the editorial ("Video Killed the Radio Star" by Elizabeth Tucker Long) in this month's PHP Architect. As you'll see, it resonated so strongly that we're simply going to quote a portion of it here:

"... Digital music is well on its way to making CDs obsolete, and instead of finding a way to capitalize on this change, record companies are desperately trying to hold on to a rapidly fading past. In trying to force people to support the dying CD market, they have angered and alienated the very people they need to keep their industry alive.

"So what does this have to do with us? We need to learn from their mistakes. As a whole, people resist change, but if we want to survive, and thrive, in the business world, we need to push for change, embrace new technologies, and, above all else, deliver the product that our customers want. Too many companies feel that they know better than their customers. In some cases, this is true, but as we've seen with the music industry, ignoring the desires of your customers can be a costly mistake. So, take a minute to talk to your customers and listen to what they have to say. It's better to listen now than to try to win your customers back later."

Elizabeth is talking to PHP programmers, folks that we tend to think of as eager to embrace new technologies. But she could as easily have been talking to an audience of RPG programmers. Change "CD" to "5250" or "RPG/400" and you'll see what we mean. Indeed we're convinced that the second paragraph could appear as-is in an IBM i publication and we would all have understood the message. What's interesting, of course, is that the CD still has value--just as the 5250 has value--but in a steadily declining market space.

We don't know about you, but we have no intention of going the way of the CD and we're more determined than ever to encourage people to maximize their investments and make the most of our 210-year-old friend. We'd love to be around to celebrate its 300th birthday.

Comments

[Hans Boldt]

Hmmm, what's 21 years old this year is the AS/400. I still remember the announce party held at Ontario Place on the Toronto waterfront. And I remember the accordian player providing entertainment on the bus ride back to the office.

Thirty years for the technology is, as you said, quite an achievement. And like you said, it's one of only two proprietary architectures left. The other is the xSeries, which started life as the S/360 in the mid 1960's. One interesting feature of that architecture is that the vast majority of S/360 programs compiled 40 years ago can still run today unchanged.

Another ancient operating system architecture remaining is Unix, which started life in the early 1970's, and survives in several forms as AIX, HP/UX, BSD, and Linux.

What's interesting is how each maintain program compatibility: In x, programs are 100% binary compatible from one version of the O/S to the next. In i, the hardware may be different, but compatibility is achieved via a machine abstraction layer. And in Unix, compatibility is at the source code level.

But anyways, back on topic, your point on the delivery of recorded audio/video is bang on. It's been said often that the customer is always right. That means that business has to read what the market wants and respond appropriately.

In the world of recorded entertainment, there will always be a demand. What customers want is a choice in delivery mechanism and a choice in how to view the video or listen to the music, which is something the media distributors are resisting. And the same is also true to some extent in the software business. Do I want my data and programs to be tied to one particular system? That's as much of a challenge in the computer industry as it is in the entertainment business. It will be interesting to see how the iSeries market deals with the current competitive pressures.

Cheers! Hans

[Nathan M. Andelin]

This blog entry could have been aptly titled "The allegory of the music CD". Like most allegories, different interpretations may arise by looking at it from different perspectives.

Let's consider an economic perspective - the resources required and the cost of physically producing a music CD, embossing a label on it, a plastic container, a printed jacket, an RFID device glued to the container's interior, sealing the container with a taped label and plastic wrap.

Consider the expense of warehousing, inventorying, trucking, securing, and retailing CDs. Consider millions of consumers driving to stores in cars, and returning home.

When you look at it from an economic perspective, you begin to see the efficiencies in digitally packaging and distributing music over the internet, in addition to more flexibility.

CD publishers are not the only ones squeezed by digital distribution methods. We're seeing the same trend in newspaper deliveries to homes. Even monopolies like school textbook publishers are beginning to feel pressure from consumers to digitally distribute.

Of course, the economics could change rather quickly if a few governments decided to take over internet backbones and began taxing downloads at a rate of say $50 dollars per GB, to fund say their interest in Java technology.

All of a sudden, distributing music via CD would begin to look attractive again - due to an "interactive tax" on internet technologies that were otherwise intrinsically more efficient.

Sometimes less efficient, more costly technologies, thrive by artificially taxing more efficient ones. But that will only go on for so long, as artificial manipulations tend to give way to intrinsic values.

-Nathan.