If you didn’t know that IBM’s AS/400 was substantially more expensive than competing products that do comparable work, you haven’t been listening, but for those tempted by IBM’s OfficeVision office automation suite for Systems Application Architecture may find that it pays them to read a report from Sierra Group of Tempe, Arizona which, Sierra says, shows that OfficeVision has taken its toll on the overall cost of owning IBM’s flagship office systems: for work groups of eight, 16, 32, 50 and 100 users, the five-year cost of owning IBM systems has increased significantly over 1989 as a result of increases in the price of peripherals, including personal computers and OS/2 software as a percentage of overall system costs, the study demonstrate; moreover, say the researchers, IBM’s concept of documentation provides only on-line computer-aided instruction for its host-based applications; insufficient, according to Sierra Group’s research with users so that meeting the real documentation requirements of users will significantly add to the cost of owning these systems; the IBM AS/400 Cost of Ownership report illustrates that in following IBM’s strategic lead by implementing graphical OfficeVision, users can expect to incur additional costs ranging from $75,000 ot $400,000 on a 100-user configuration, so that IBM will have some serious marketing to do to get graphical OfficeVision accepted – the investment at the desktop will rise significantly but there will be no compensatory drop in the requirement for AS/400 processing power.
