As regards the 9370, is it better than the AS/400 at transaction processing and publishing, and more cost-effective in terms of meeting programmers needs, as claimed by the Bblingen laboratories in October? IBM UK isn’t nearly so committed to glasnost as the Germans, but one product manager looked as though she wouldn’t be averse to a bit of perestroika when she tartly remarked that the Bblingen bunch would say that, wouldn’t they?
Others appeared to be more for-giving of Germanic indiscretion, and explained that IBM laboratories tend to become terribly involved in their own projects: of course Bblingen would say the 9370 gives more processing power than than the AS/400, and it’s perfectly natural for Dr Lenneman to claim that the 9370 is more suitable than the AS/400 for mixed applications – after all, who amongst us would dream of badmouthing CICS to Marcia Gillespie et al at Hursley Park? After 20 years of development work, and at least two stays of execution, emotions run high – all of which makes it extremely difficult to weave a way through the minefield woven by messianic IBMers talking their own books and identify the elusive company policy – never forget, IBMers in their labs around the world propose, but it is the Armonkeys that finally dispose. A more rational view is that the the 9370 is better than the AS/400 at numerical calculations – although a maths co-processor for the AS/400 might remedy that – and that the commercially unsuccessful 9370 has lacked applications since birth. i b m
