Are IBM i Shops Cheap?

Several recent blog comments have highlighted something that we've often pondered ourselves. Why do so many members of the IBM i community seem to be so cheap?

Nathan Andelin commented along these lines in response to last week's post on RPG OA. Elsewhere Jon came upon the latest of many complaints from programmers bemoaning the fact that they can't persuade their management to buy into RDP**.

Often at conferences we come across programmers who have been tasked with writing utility X and are looking for direction. It's not uncommon that they have already spent many hours attempting to build something that a $1,000 tool could have had up and running weeks ago. Susan often fields questions regarding the "best practices" for creating ILE applications, only to have the questioners reject the guidance because their home-grown source-management facility can't cope with doing things the "right way." Now admittedly change-management tools cost a lot more than $1,000, but our experience indicates that most shops that use home-grown tools spend waaaaayyyyy more money maintaining them than they would have spent buying a commercial tool.

Perhaps more to the point, the folks tasked with doing such work are usually among the most senior (and therefore most expensive) staff. The same staff that could more usefully be building libraries of subprocedures for functions that are company specific for use by other staff, thereby making everyone in the shop more efficient. Or perhaps they could spend their extra time investigating new technologies that could make the whole operation more efficient.

But no. Many IBM i shops would rather repeatedly reinvent the wheel. Sadly it often seems to be these very same techies that perpetuate the "If it wasn't built here it is not worth having" mythology. Why do they do that? Personally we'd rather be exploring new stuff, not reworking the in-house email program for the 50th time.

Perhaps what's needed is for ISVs to include a "true cost" calculator on their websites? IBM Rational could take the lead with one for RDP. We'll give them a hand with a few basic calculations:

Salary of an RPG programmer: (say) $50,000 pa. Hopefully you are paid more than that (you're undoubtedly worth it) but we'll work with a low figure.

Additional costs--healthcare, accommodation, equipment, etc.: Normally a minimum of $50,000 pa.

How much more efficient could the programmer be if they used RDP? The lowest figure any user has ever given us is 15 percent and most claim 25 percent or more, but let's stay low and say 15 percent.

How much would it cost to achieve that 15 percent? Well to really make their work sing along let's add an additional 20-plus-inch monitor to their configuration. That's a combined total of about $1,000 for the RDP tool and the monitor. In other words the cost of acquisition is 1 percent of the annual cost of the programmer. Is there any other aspect of the company's activities where a guaranteed return of 15X wouldn't cause such a rush for the checkbook that the carpet would spontaneously burst into flames?  

If indeed Nathan's view is correct then perhaps RPG OA will never achieve its true potential because ISVs aren't going to build tools that nobody buys. That would be sad.

Does this match your experience? If not how did you achieve this nirvana? If so, what do you think can be done to change things? Please share your thoughts by commenting to this post.

** It's an interesting side note that despite the many complaints about IBM charging for RDP, it's a simple fact of life that uptake of the tool has been far greater since it had a price tag. Sadly the ones that suffer the most because of the cost are the early adopters for whom WDSC became a way of life and (assumedly) they now have no way to prove to their management how much more efficient they are when using the tool and therefore can't get the dollars for RDP.

Comments

[Dan Darnell]

Interesting topic!

For the most part I agree with your calculations with regard to in-house IBM i shops. Tools are a cost of doing business but in reality reduce the cost of doing business overall. In the ISV space though I think the equation is different.

In the ISV space, for tools from IBM/Rational, I think there is an argument for cheaper (or free) pricing:

Simply stated, when ISV's build software for the IBM i platform, IBM sells hardware, software, and support. Instead of trying to make money off the backs of ISV's, support them with reasonably priced (or free) tools and IBM will come out way ahead in hardware, software, and support.

Microsoft and Oracle understand this. IBM/Rational doesn't.

Am I off base?

--Dan

[Jon Paris]

Not off base as far a Rational is concerned Dan - but IBM (i.e. IBM Rochester) get the picture and members of Parnerworld get their hardware at a discount and their software is (I think) still free.

That sadly is on a country by country basis. Here in Canada last time I checked the deal was nowhere near as good but I believe in France (for example) even Rational see the light.

Sadly there are severe restrictions on membership of Parnerworld. We had our membership cancelled some years ago because we did not have a "product" - education not counting as a product. IBM have done things to help educators in recent times so I'm not complaining.

[Jon Paris]

Correction - since I can't edit the post.

I meant that Rochester originated software (OS, SQL developers kit, etc.) is free. NOT the Rational components - which are discounted but as you note rational just don't "get it" as far as encouraging ISVs.

[Buck]

I'm a longtime WDSC adherent. I love WDSC to bits. Still, I wonder if discussing efficiency is the place to advocate.

The boss will always want some hard numbers to put on that 15% efficiency improvement. I don't think that my projects finish in 15% less time because of an excellent IDE - the real world supplies enough interruptions to see to that.

What I think I get from WDSC is better. I think I am a better programmer when I can see more code at once, when I can edit multiple sections of the same source member simultaneously. I *think* better in WDSC than I do in SEU. Now, I can't quantify that either, but unlike efficiency claims, the boss has never asked me to try.

As for the question of frugality, I think it's only natural for this market. Most of the midrange businesses were small, on the edge, family owned startups. The S/3 or S/34 was pitched to them as low cost, low maintenance and easy to program. The boss/owner/janitor learnt as much RPG as he needed to learn in order to push out invoices, purchase orders and monthly statements.

Small business, small budget and most importantly, a strong sense of 'do it yourself.' I think this is coupled with the heavily integrated nature of the midrange platform - IBM i has everything needed to develop business software, anything beyond that is 'good to have' rather than 'must have'. CPF didn't come with disk analysis tools... must not be important. DSU didn't have a code librarian... must not be important. OS/400 didn't come with BRMS; that one could buy it from IBM must mean it's important... for large operations with a big budget.

I'm pretty sure that our do it yourself marketplace is the reason we don't spend money on software, but IBM's 'almost everything integrated' policy has helped us in our frugality, too.

[Dan]

I lost my Partnerworld discount years ago too. (I used to market a product but now I don't.) As with educators, consultants don't qualify. Hmmm. That's something else I should be complaining about!

Glad to hear though that Partnerworld is still around. I'd heard different things over time about it being phased out or becoming so restrictive that few could qualify.

Also intrigued to hear your view that it is at Rational where the disconnect really happens. Can't completely fault them though. I believe that IBM expects Rational to show profit as a more-or-less standalone entity rather than IBM taking the view that I expressed -- Rational tools sells IBM hardware, software, and service.

[Chris]

Jon

I am a member of Partnerworld and the discounts have been degraded over the years. I do not get free OS or any other utility and when you look at the benefits of Partnerworld its not a simple discount across the board. SWMA is not discounted by IBM Canada especially the 3 year EMO! Others do get free and discounted options but IBM Canada is not one of those. I also know Canadians pay around 30% more for hardware and software than our US cousins so even that is not an even playing field.

Playing in the IBMi space is expensive, we have been developing on the platform for over 20 years. Users are not as you indicated `cheap` they just see less value in the solution than you do as someone who does not run and maintain a system or need to keep a software stack up to date to ensure you development project use the best versions available.

I think you are way off bat, IBMi is expensive in comparison to other platforms we develop and run on, as Dan has rightly said IBM does far less than others to support its ISV community. We are also a member of the Microsoft ISV community and see a far better benefits package across the board as we do with other partnerships we have formed such as SuSe and Apple.

Chris...

[DrFranken]

I have counseled many developers that if they are working for a company so cheap that they refuse to invest that "last 1%" in tools to do the job right they need to look for a new job. Screen real-estate is SO cheap now that multiple screens, multiple w-i-d-e screens, should be the norm for developers.

To the point of i shops being cheap, that much I can agree with. They realize that the machines are very reliable, run forever, are often ignored like the ugly step child, but are only used for the most mission critical apps in the shop. They get this idea that they don't need to refresh anything for 5 or more years and sadly the developers workstations and software tools get lumped into that.

[J Taylor]

I think the word "cheap" has negative connotations attached to it, but yes I think IBM i shops frequently fit that term. They are used to buying the hardware and that being all you needed. The technology explosion of of the last decade or two have made it hard to get by like that anymore.

[Pete Helgren]

The battle is with other less expensive hardware and software which has set the bar low when dealing with servers and software. Compare all development tools cost for PHP and Java: Linux on the desktop and Eclipse as the IDE. Software cost = $0.

Compared with RPG on IBM i: RDP $425 ? (always tough to sort out the pricing), Windows 7 $200. SWMA on RDP ? The bottom line is that with RDP it will be at least $600 to start and probably a few hundred a year to keep up.

At the management level, they see $0 cost to develop in PHP or Java vs $hundreds for RDP. Which way do you think the shop will lean.

I am with you Jon. There needs to be some compelling documentation that justifies the cost otherwise the $0 cost of alternatives looks too good to pass up.

[Hans Boldt]

Did anyone else notice that Jon/Susan went from a 15% improvement to a 15X improvement in the span of a single paragraph? ;-)

But I agree with Pete. The open-source alternatives are not only inexpensive, but many are also darn good.

I'll give an example: Back in December, I took on a new development project using CakePHP. Within 5 weeks, I was 7 weeks ahead of my expected schedule. So I can attest that CakePHP is a great way to develop a web based application. And the experience I gained on that project helped my land my current job.

Today's reality is this: If you want real productivity improvements, you have to use the right tools. If you're working in a procedural language with limited built-in capabilities, you can't get much improvement with better tooling. You need to switch to programming languages with robust capabilities and frameworks with rich functionality.

For example, if you're still writing SQL code, you're not at the right level of abstraction. You need tools that write the SQL for you.

But to get back to the theme of Jon/Susan's article, yes, there are shops willing to spend money on tools, even when the software is free. Since 2008, I've worked in shops where dual monitors are standard for programmers. So maybe the i shops are the odd ones?