PowerHouse on Linux

[Jeff Hoffman]

At 08:07 PM 01-04-03 +0200, Jon Kvisli wrote:

>The comments about PH on Linux triggers some thougths. I don't have any
>answers, but maybe some of you have opinions?
>
>1. Can IBM's committment to Linux be interpreted as an opening for
>Cognos/PowerHouse to reach the IBM mainframe marked?

Only if PH/Linux was a supported environment, I do not see conservative
IBMers using it otherwise.

I am told HP is also supporting Linux in a big way.

>2. If so, is the IBM mainframe really a marked for a 20 year old
>character based 4GL? There still exists a lot of characterbased
>Cobol/CISC applications in the IBM world, but it seems likely that new
>development or reengineering projects will be using other, more modern
>developing tools than PH?

I would tend to agree that other products would be used (mostly packages
rather than tools). However there are a lot of user requirements that
cannot be filled by packages and PH would be the most effective way of
fulfulling these requirements especially in Windows or Linux environments,
but methinks that reason and will not prevail.

Another reason that PH will not advance is cost, I was just looking at PH
8.41 on Win2000 and if I developed a system for a customer there would be
immediately a $6,000 ($australian approx 3,000 $US) upfront cost for just
the PH licenece (one developer / five user run-time / five user data
access) I would then have to recover development costs. This would put the
Kybo on most projects.

The only way I see PH advancing is for Cognos to reduce upfont ownership by
either cuting prices (I wish) or may be letting PH produce EXE files that
can be run at minimal cost. 

I guess what I am saying is charge for the developer licences but not for
the run-time, let the developer have the right to unlimited copying of the
run-time environment.

Just my 2 bobs worth.

Jeff
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