Two new projects from IBM will integrate the AS/400 more tightly with the Microsoft desktop environments. IBM System User, a sister publication, investigates.
The AS/400 has never been renowned for its jazzy graphics or advanced end-user functionality but, for most users, this has not been an issue. According to figures from IBM Corp, of the 70,000 AS/400 units shipped last year, 43% went to plug and play users, classified as those who wanted a robust, functional system with no trimmings. The bulk of these sales, however, have been made to existing AS/400 users not to the ever growing band of Microsoftees, companies hooked on the Microsoft Corp Windows graphical environment. To attract these users to the machine, IBM knows that it must move to improve the integration between the AS/400 and Windows personal computers, and that it must add increasing Windows-style function to the system. According to Bill Reed, advanced technology consultant at IBM, The AS/400 lab is very much market-driven. If 70 per cent of customers have Microsoft desktops that is where you have to be, he says. As a result, IBM now has two projects currently in development, code- named Unity and Lightning, that are designed both to improve the integration between Windows clients and the AS/400, and to simplify the applications development and systems administration process. The aim of the Unity project is to translate the systems management and administration functions of the AS/400 from a conventional character-based environment into both the Windows95 and NT graphical environments.
Co-operative product
Lightning is designed to integrate the AS/400 with applications developed in Microsoft’s Visual Basic, the most common desktop development environment. Unity is a co-operative product. It gives the AS/400 the same look and feel that you would expect in Microsoft environments. It uses some of the nice bits of Windows95 and NT such as the Explorer function [for file management and manipulation], says Reed. Unity offers AS/400 users the same functions as the AS/400’s traditional character- based systems management product – but it adds Windows features such as dragging and dropping icons, context menus and property sheets. From the user interface end you haven’t got a clue that the server is on the AS/400, says Reed. You get it as a free option – it comes bundled with the Windows95 or NT versions of Client Access. When you install Client Access, it installs this on your Windows95 desktop. Unity is in beta test for Client Access for Windows95 and NT 4.0 client and can be downloaded from the IBM Client Access home page www.as400.ibm.com/client/cahome.htm. The Windows 95 version is expected to be commercially available by the end of this year with the NT version to follow in the first quarter of next year. When Client Access was first launched, it was criticized for its lack of performance and functionality. But according to Reed, the latest versions of the product have addressed and solved these problems. The other project, Lightning (CI No 3,042), is designed to integrate AS/400 products with Visual Basic applications by enabling users to create links to and from the desktop application to the server-based processes within the AS/400. Customers will be able to create links to AS/400 database processes, programs, stored procedures, data queues and commands. It works using a number of wizards that IBM has created for Visual Basic, installed as drop-down menus. By using the wizards, users can automatically generate the necessary code to invoke AS/400 procedures. To a large extent it’s a further demonstration of the way that we are integrating the AS/400 as a server for the Microsoft desktop environment, Reed says. He adds that in spite of the high proportion of no-frills customers, there are still enough users developing their own code to make Lightning useful. There are two groups of people that it will interest. The first is the package developer and the other is the 50% of users out there that develop in-house
code, he says. Desktop development environments such as Visual Basic, however, have been criticized by some analysts for empowering end-users to develop ad hoc applications, that may be bug-ridden or compromise security, a key AS/400 strength. Reed disagrees, asserting that there is no way in which AS/400 security could be compromised. Security will still be handled by the AS/400. You are extending Visual Basic to do the code but you are putting a full blown server behind it, he says. I think what this has done is made development formal. Before this, you needed to get into the Visual Basic code and hack it about. This product does a lot of the graft that you would have done yourself in the pre-Lightning days. He adds that neither project is designed to be installed on every end-user machine. Unity is aimed at system administrators and Lightning at development staff. IBM has also made other improvements to the Client Access product in its attempt to improve the graphical capabilities of the AS/400, and for example Client/Access for Windows95 will come bundled free with Lotus cc:Mail for Internet 1.0.
