Is powerhouse dead?

[Edis, Bob]

G'day all

Cognos NEVER supported the 'VAX' platform.  It supported OpenVMS!  OpenVMS
is quite alive and going strong.  The majority of OpenVMS shops plan on
remaining on OpenVMS even after it becomes a HP product.  OpenVMS sales have
been strong and growing since Compaq bought Digital.  The port of OpenVMS to
the Itanium (64bit) processor will be completed in 2003 and if Cognos tune
PH to work as a 64bit app then it should be a hard to beat combo for
performance (as a 4GL of course).

Most PowerHouse shops on MPE will/are moving to HP-UX where PowerHouse works
quite well.

IBM will itself kill off the AS/400 soon.

I believe Cognos needs to do some things to improve PowerHouse as a product
and make it more visible to the world.

1. Work closely with developers as they have a subtle but pervasive
influence on management and clients.  This means nominal pricing policies to
get the product in the hands of as many developers as possible.  Charge only
if the developer sells and makes a profit on a product made with PowerHouse.
This is what Microsoft and Sybase did with their products initially and look
where VB and PowerBuilder are today.

2. Encourage, perhaps through direct investment, new marketable applications
built with PowerHouse.  These days development tools are not bought on their
own virtues but through the fact they come with an application.  Companies
want applications not development software.  That's why Oracle can sell a
mediocre product like Developer.  Cognos MUST work more closely with
programmers like us around the world in a way that we feel important and not
someone to be shafted when possible.

3. PowerHouse DOES have a limited re-use of code ability but I agree with
our friend from Norway, the tool needs to have callable functions or
procedures that are self contained and usable by many applications.  It's
not good enough to say that can be done with an external 3GL procedure.  I
you're a PowerHouse shop you don't want to have to find C or Cobol
experience as well.

4. Cognos needs to 'refresh' PowerHouse to make it 'look' like a new tool -
the latest and greatest!  Oracle Developer (Forms) has been around since I
was in college in the mid 1980's (version 3) but it's seen as a 'modern'
tool.  Java is just a variant of C (as is C++) which is as old or older than
PowerHouse.  Visual Basic is BASIC! 

Cognos has a GREAT tool in PowerHouse but it needs to be serious about it.
If Business Intelligence is where it wants to focus then fine, sell off the
PowerHouse component or make it a separate entity.  

It's still hard to beat PowerHouse for rapid application development and
maintenance does cost a lot less than with a 3GL tool.  Only true OO tools
such as SmallTalk can beat it.  C++ and Java have the 'potential' to be more
productive but in reality most shops don't have the discipline to make it
so.

PowerHouse Web from my experience beats ASP, HTML, Java, etc hands down when
developing database based web applications.

Axiant from my experience beats VB and Access hands downs when developing
client sever database applications.

PowerHouse is not dead but it is ill.  Please Cognos, make it better or turn
off life support so we can get on with the future.

Regards,
Blue

-----Original Message-----
From: Johnson, Tracy [mailto:Tracy.Johnson@msiusa.com]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 9:16 AM
To: powerh-l@lists.swau.edu
Subject: RE: Is powerhouse dead?


Looks like it died due to a comedy-of-errors.

They supported the VAX platform, then it died, (it lives as a shell of its
former glory.)

They supported the MPE platform, now it is scheduled to die.

They ignored the AS/400 platform, and it appears to be going strong.

They're left with sundry flavors of *nix and Microsoft.

Was it not enough eggs and too many baskets?

Place your bets, OpenCognos anyone?

BT
NNNN
Tracy Johnson
MSI Schaevitz Sensors 

Adam Woodhouse said:
> 
> We are an IBM 820 iSeries shop and are working towards 
> removing PH from our
> system.  Primarily due to Cognos not supporting the AS/400 
> line anymore.

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