IBM structures OS/400 to reassure, please, SSP, CPF users – but prices rise steeply While the hardware content of IBM’s AS/400 announcement, described in CI No 956, is clearly important, much more crucial to whether the machine will be as much of a success as the 9370 has been a failure is the software, and, as with the hardware, the software looks for once to have been conceived to please rather than to confuse – and confound the opposition. Indeed, so hard has IBM tried to please and to avoid frightening off any of its System 36 users that it has avoided saying anything about the conversions users are going to have to undergo in order to get the most out of the AS/400. Needless to say, the most important software announcement is the Operating System/400 itself – and IBM has done all it can to make it look to existing users as if it is not a new operating system at all: never before has a major new operating system been introduced with virtually no mention of its native mode: instead, all the stress is on the two emulation environments it supports, CPF from System 38, SSP from Systems 34 and 36. IBM says that OS/400 enables end users, programmers and system operators to access menus and displays that are easy to use and consistent, offering a significant number of functions previously available in other products, in addition to many new, easy-to-use functions. And, again bending over backwards, IBM declares In order to meet customers’ growth and flexibility requirements, the new full-function capability enables the user to take advantage of system functions when and as they are needed. OS/400 is also of course the newest operating environment to provide the foundation for support of Systems Application Architecture. The OS/400 features that IBM highlights are the single integrated operating system for all models – the hot breath of DEC’s VMS breathing uncomfortably down IBM’s neck again, and isn’t it embarrassing that IBM has to highlight a feature all its leading competitors have offered for years? The features IBM highlights in the new operating system are of course headed by ease-of-use, -installation and maintenance – that’s what the whole thing is all about. Surprisingly, perhaps, the System 38 database – now with added SQL – is characterised only as significant data base functions (sounds as if someone from the old Data Processing Division had a hand writing that one). IBM also highlights the electronic customer support, on-line education (which sounds very neat indeed), comprehensive security to all system resources, and Application Program Interface to system functions. The sting comes with the steep rate at which the price rises as users climb the upgrade ladder: each model, from the B10 to the B60, falls into its own processor group for pricing, and the groups, for some dark, impenetrable IBM reason, are called D5, E5, F5, G5, H5 and J5. The one-time charge for the operating system for each processor group is $5,500; $10,500; $14,000; $25,000; $38,000 and $55,000.
Software pricing regime The same pricing schedule applies to the AS/400 licensed programs, and, not surprisingly, IBM is not promising that the pricing structure will last for all time, and advises that over time, at IBM’s discretion, these processor groups may be redefined to keep in line with processor performance and technological advances. Volume discounting is available for one time charge features of some programs, starting when you take four copies, and it’s not too inflexible – discounts are available on licences aggregated across groups, but the one-time charges for upgrades – the difference in price between the program on the two model groups in question – are not subject to volume discounting. Software is included in the leasing packages IBM offers.
A key machine in the SAA hierarchy IBM seems to be trying gently to put into people’s minds that the AS/400 and the OS/400 operating system will play a crucial role in its emerging Systems Application Architecture. The idea of SAA is that if applications are written to the pre-set in
terfaces, or adapted to them, there will be complete consistency of user interface right across the participating IBM product line, portability between incompatible IBM architectures will be greatly enhanced, and, perhaps most important of all for end-user departments, training will be once-for-all, so that an individual who has spent a few months working on a PS/2 under OS/2 will be able to sit down at an AS/400 or a 3270 terminal and know which key to press to achieve what, and will recognise what the screen display means. IBM summarises SAA by saying that it consists of four related elements that establish interfaces, conventions and protocols and are designed to provide an enhanced level of consistency in the areas of: common user access, where the design and use of screen panels and user interaction techniques are defined; common programming interface, where there are new standards for languages and services used by application developers in building software; common communications support, where the connectivity of systems and programs is fixed – and is based on Systems Network Architecture; and applications, where IBM is mad keen to get third party software vendors to write new applications to the standards, and adapt or convert their old ones. And should it be called Systems Applications Architecture, System Application Architecture, or Systems Application Architecture? It seems it should be the last one – but even IBM gets it wrong occasionally in some of its own documents and releases!
RJE communications, Profs connection In addition to the communications within OS/400, there is an AS/400 Communications Utilities licensed program for exchanging mail or files and submitting or receiving jobs between connected systems on a 370 host-controlled network using Bisync or full SNA. The VM Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem/Profs bridge using bisync, and the Remote Job Entry Facility using either bisync or SNA/SDLC are supported, and prices range from $2,500 on a D5 through $4,200; $7,500; $10,000; $12,500; to $15,000 on a J5 machine – in other words the 9406 B60 processor model. The program is one of the second batch, which hit the streets November 25.
