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Is IBM AS400 Dead?

  • 1.  Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 09, 2022 09:24 AM
    This is the most common topic discussed throughout the AS400 iSeries user community, and the motive behind such discussion is that current organizations, jobseekers, and developers want to know if the platform is still relevant today as it is an old platform introduced in 1988.

    If you fall into one of the above categories, the answer may surprise you.

    • Since the beginning, compatibility is one of the most robust features of this platform. You can efficiently run a program on IBM Power Systems that was created for IBM AS400 in the year 1988, that too with minimum or no changes.
    • Due to this seamless compatibility, most of the companies that purchased AS400 years ago still refer to it as AS400 despite their Power server being of higher magnitude and features with cutting-edge technology.
    Let's share your thoughts...


    ------------------------------
    Elise Parker
    Integrative Systems
    Itasca IL
    8664687974
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Thu February 10, 2022 01:28 AM
    Please take a look at this video...
    https://youtu.be/VpyNG0E1BLs

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    Torbjörn Appehl
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Thu February 10, 2022 03:59 AM
    Tor, this is a spam account. Very annoying.

    Cheers, Wim


  • 4.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Fri February 11, 2022 08:12 AM
    It's a really great video you shared @Torbjörn Appehl ...and this is true I also believe that as400 is not dead yet.  it simply upgraded as technology day by day many of the industries are still using the as400 Or nowadays we can say its IBMi... but we call it as "AS400" then many peoples said that are you still working on the dead technology. 

    so what do you want to tell those people on this?
    ​​

    ------------------------------
    Elise Parker
    Integrative Systems
    Itasca IL
    8664687974
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Mon February 14, 2022 08:20 AM
    If people that are currently working on IBM systems would stop referring to IBM Power systems as AS400s then younger people would start to understand that we are NOT working on outdated technology and then there might be a little more respect. It is important for people that have been using IBM for a long time to continue to learn and implement enhancements and use correct, modern terms. 

    Lori Austin







  • 6.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Mon February 14, 2022 08:54 AM
    Yes, I appreciate your feedback on it @Lori Austin many people are introducing IBM Power systems as AS400s so many people are confused about as400, iSeries, and IBMi also between the operating system and server. So people would stop referring to IBM Power systems as AS400s.

    ------------------------------
    Elise Parker
    Integrative Systems
    Itasca IL
    8664687974
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Mon February 14, 2022 08:49 AM
    In my humble opinion, and I having working with AS400/iSeries/IBM i for years, and it seams the actual clients are leaving this platform and even closing the contracts with IBM/Kyndryl in some countries in Europe.

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    Luis Martins
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  • 8.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Mon February 14, 2022 09:10 AM
    It goes both directions I would say. Similar to the mainframe market, the ones who wanted to leave already left. Power business in Europe was growing quite substantially last year (I think 7% or so) and we see a number of ISV's modernizing on IBM i to reduce number of x86 servers etc. 
    So it depends on where you look I would say. Here you can find some inspiration: https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/us-en/resources/power/ibm-i-customer-stories/ and remember, never talk about AS/400, iSeries och System i.. they are old and dying. IBM i is not.

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    Torbjörn Appehl
    ------------------------------



  • 9.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Tue February 15, 2022 03:25 AM
    Totally agree, there are New Great Opportunities to continue growing with IBM i, you just have to follow the Torbjörn's link ...

    (Read with sarcasm, please) "I'm typing this from my typewriter ... I don't like say PC or laptop, too much names: 8086, x286, x386, Pentium??, Windows 95, 97 ...i3, i5, i7 and now Windows11.  Too confusing. I started typing in one Underwood nº 10 and I prefer continuos calling it a typewriter ..."


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    Fernando Plaza
    IBM i System Administrator
    CD INVEST
    MADRID
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue February 15, 2022 04:09 AM
    Yes in did. With so many opportunities, for example in Luxembourg, with the financial market that is strong in this country and logistic companies. For example, I can't understand why some banks finish the contracts with iSeries systems, take way the core business to other platforms and leave just some iSeries systems for historical purposes. Other cases, move there systems to other country for the a IBM i Cloud infrastructure, and that maybe makes sense. Maybe due to some financial strategy ?

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    Luis Martins
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue February 15, 2022 05:49 AM

    I started on IBM AS/400 back in 1991 (with Release 3 - there was no Version x Release x :-) ) when I was 19 years old (now you know my actual age :-) ) and was the youngest everywhere in the IBM i Scene (even in these days 31 years ago).
    When I visited the first training at IBM everybody asked me why I go to this dying platform and that I should look for other technologies because I am so young and I should spend my time in technologies, operating systems and programing languages which have a future.

    Now 31 years later I celebrate 24 years edvberatung.litters which I founded back in 1998 and since that date I modernized and integrated a lot of stuff and right now we are modernizing even more than ever in IBM i.
    The customers I have will stay on that os and hardware because they know that it works. That it is secure (when you configure it the right way which is sadly not often the case) and that it is safe because it will be developed for at least another 10 years.

    Yes - it is hard to find people who want to learn RPG but it is also hard to find people who want to learn c# or Java or JavaScript/TypeScript or whatever because we live in times where it is getting harder every day to find good people at all. 
    Therefore we need to convince these people not only with technologies and money but with a package of arguments so they understand why it makes sense to go to this system.

    We develop modern Microservices and use JSON based on IBM RPG and ILE environment - without PASE, without Apache and without Java and everything. We develop modern Web Applications which are running on IBM I and can be integrated with a 5250 Javascript Emulator so you can modernize your apps step by step. These things work and they are secure. They are manageable and therefore the customers love it.
    With this you also have the fastest platform for running these kind of services and you can handle the whole system still with one administrator - if you really have one. I have a lot of smaller customers who never had an administrator for IBM i. They started to have one, when Windows PC's came into the companies.

    On Top of this stable, secure and fast services we develop with Angular, Swift, Kotlin, c# and some Low Code solutions which all use IBM i, DB2 for I and RPG Web- and Microservices as the backend.

    It works but you need to care about that. You need to inform what is possible and not only ask one person who is selling one solution...

    I also have customers who don't know what an IBM i is. They use Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server on Windows or Linux together with ERP solutions that are also 20 years old and they have the same problems finding new and good developers who can handle the old stuff or don't know how to modernize that Legacy Apps and I can tell you that it is much harder to them to find good ways of doing that.

    And of course - it is much more expensive.

    So - my experience is, that IBM I is not dead at all and that it is stable at the companies which are still using it. Back in 2003-2008 we had some years where lot's of companies left the platform but in the past 4-5 years that nearly stopped and some even came back because they learned to see all the advantages this platform gives to them.

    Of course it would be great if IBM would tell all the companies on the world about these advantages. How Powerful the POWER Systems Hardware is and how fast, secure and modern IBM I together with DB2 is. That Google is using this hardware and develops it together with IBM because these are things nobody knows when I tell them. 

    If Apple or Microsoft would have that marketing ammo I am sure every little child would know that Google is running Power Systems. When the POWER Systems hardware is getting more famous IBM I also has the chance to grow more.

    My Partners, my Team and I work on that and do our best to go on this way.



    ------------------------------
    Markus Litters
    ------------------------------



  • 12.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue February 15, 2022 03:35 PM
    Really another "AS400 dead" thread? ;-P :-D I can just suggest to just search those words on google to find plenty and even good answers, we are so insecure in the AS (... pardon IBMi ) community that we investigate such aspect a lot ;)

    Joking apart, the i incorporates some unique design aspects that were visionary and still are relevant and unmatched today to properly design robust business applications (from pure business perspective, x86 VMs sprawl and now microservices or light virtualization are IMHO a highly inefficient method to partition/design workloads....... much better the subsystem concept on i, pools, native job queues, high performance microservices (aka dynamic CALL to another PGM!) etc.etc.

    But we must be critic also here to be constructive.
    One of the major pain points: IBMi lacks a modern and visionary *native* graphic terminal (think something like PCoIP) and conversational oriented GUI usable on it and relative (streamed centrally from the machine) dev tools. I don't mean web, I mean a proper protocol built for ERPs and pure conversational sessions as a ground concept. Web is another thing (and super usable on IBMi today with all the open software available).

    IBM should have improved incrementally the 5250 stream toward something different (keeping the same level of integration with the RPG toolchain).
    Good design of dev tools are essential: there a reason why some people open SEU instead of RDi ... because on new machines SEU and compilers and search operations are crazy fast.... it doesn't make sense to have a disconnected (and eclipse is slow!) dev station like RDi because we need anyway a running IBMi to test and run RPG programs!

    VAR "modernization" suites...  (even the term itself is misplaced... what there is to modernize if the platform is indeed modern as we keep saying ? :) ) ... they are good but IMHO we need something native and integrated and supported by IBM (exactly like RPG and display file, SDA etc.etc. practically known by programmers ) otherwise there is too much fragmentation in the landscape in knowhow...




    ------------------------------
    ace ace
    ------------------------------



  • 13.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 12:55 AM

    Yes, this is what I thought. Oh my - not another „Is the platform dead" discussion. 


    It seems like some sort of obsession of the whole IBM community. Not only IBM i and Power Systems, but also the Mainframe people. The Mainframers gained some confidence in their platform and them selfs lately, after years of being mocked with „COBOL is dead" and „dinosaurs".

    But the IBM i community seems to be stuck in „we are all doomed if we don't do …" and „is the platform dead?". 

    From my personal PoV - No IBM i is mit dead - it's one of the most sophisticated and technically most advanced platforms ever built. In fact in the 1980 and 1990 is was so far ahead of its time, that most of the industry didn't even grasp how far. 

    And for what it's worth - no one - really not a single person is asking „Is Windows dead?" or „Is Unix/Linux dead?" even if the fundamental concepts of these systems are 40+ years old, and you also can run a Turbo Pascal binary from 1988 often without any change on Windows, this doesn't seem to be sign of „outdated technology". 

    So if you ask me - we all should just stop asking „Is the AS/400 dead?" because it is as dead as the IBM /360 or MS-DOS. We are all working on IBM i on Power, like others use IBM Z or Windows 11.

    And last but not least - yes, IBM should have built a really good „graphical conversational UI" based on the extended 5250 data stream 20 years ago. Man, they even created DDS keywords for windows, buttons, boxes and a HTML keyword - but never really used it besides the whole „WebSphere debacle". 



    ------------------------------
    Daniel Gross
    ------------------------------



  • 14.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 05:17 AM
    Yeah, don't tell me, I even used the "checkboxes" (yes, there are) keyword with DDS. : - D
    Yes - I really don't know why they stopped improving 5250 stream or a full conversational session based replacement (but interoperable)..... I mean, little things, not rockets... a nice grid component, a good date picker, a file upload widget and a decent picture widget with good RPG support integration... that's it for start and would have been ok for many uses... developing an improved performant display protocol IMHO would have costed maybe one tenth or less of all WebSphere/Eclipse behemothes with MUCH more productivity in developing business applications... but it's not too late IBM! ;)

    Also, as an example: a light SEU replacement or improvement is needed. It's absurd having the native editor (know by all professionals) on the machine without - say - native syntax support for the newest form RPG free and only columnar support. Integration of the whole toolchain and stack was a major selling point of i.... don't obliterate this good philosophy!
    RDi is decent, but big, slow, slow search, needs to be installed/upgraded, need a separate license, all the defect of eclipse, doesn't have advantage in being local (we cannot develop locally, a ibmi is needed to test ultimately!). With the recent versions they rebuilt the "ibm i navigator"... give the same love and effort also to the RPG toolchain! ;)

    On a positive note, we are obliged to cite how good some recent improvements are: i.e. I really like the set of "IBM i Services (SQL)"... exposing such whole set operating system information to an SQL engine (without reinventing the wheel) is really powerful, you can indeed conduct really powerful queries and system introspection really quick and it is a nice idea in line with the "i" overall philosophy and spirit. Bravo IBM.

    ------------------------------
    ace ace
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 10:31 AM

    > One of the major pain points: IBMi lacks a modern and visionary *native* graphic terminal

    The current consensus is to ReST services with a pluggable UI on top written in any of the cool frameworks that we have today. React, Angular, you pick your favorite. Therefore, you could also argue that the vision was very good not providing yet another "native" GUI.

    Another problem with the native GUI approach is that business code gets mixed with UI code. Look at all the green screen applications out there that are hard to modernize because of this intertwining.

    > and eclipse is slow

    I have to protest against this remark (being an Eclipse Platform committer). Eclipse is not slow. Eclipse is a very quick Rich Application Framework. It is the RDi plugin that is not fast because of the constant communication with the server. Perfectly workable though with a decent network connection.

    > all the defect of eclipse

    The same goes for this remark. You are insinuating that Eclipse is a buggy application, but that is not true. Even the 5-year-old version that IBM seems to be married with, 4.6, is very stable.

    I enjoy reading your comments, but because you have pushed my buttons, I had to react ;)

    Cheers,



    ------------------------------
    Wim Jongman
    ------------------------------



  • 16.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 02:49 PM

    > > and eclipse is slow
    > I have to protest against this remark

    As a heavy user of RDi I can only second this - Eclipse and RDi aren't slow at all. Sometimes it seems, that RDi hangs on an operation, but you would have to wait on the terminal too, if you do the same operations there.

    > > One of the major pain points: IBMi lacks a modern and visionary *native* graphic terminal
    > The current consensus is to ReST services with a pluggable UI on top written in any of the
    > cool frameworks that we have today.

    On that point, I will have to respond - yes, today is everything JSON - some years ago everything was XML - and before that everything had to be 3-tier/client/server/pick-your-favorite - and in 10 years from now, I doubt, that JSON will be the "lastest and greatest" then.

    And as long as the IBM i is degraded to an invisible back-end-system it will always be mocked as "dead". So a real "native GUI" - would have been a very good addition back then, and even today, because it gives the system a visible identity.

    Today I would maybe develop it in JS to make it useable on "all platforms". But leaving it up to the developers/consultants was and still is a huge mistake IMHO, because if you already offloaded the UI from the machine (and this is often done) one might say, maybe it's not so hard, to de-platform all those nice web services too.

    > Another problem with the native GUI approach is that business code gets mixed with UI
    > code. Look at all the green screen applications out there that are hard to modernize
    > because of this intertwining.

    I would say, this is true for every platform. Look at all those (sometimes badly written) Visual Basic, Delphi, C#, PHP or other applications. Any determined programmer can embed the most sophisticated business logic in any Form/UI/Webpage if he or she wants to do so.
    But it seems, that nobody complains about that with PHP or Visual Studio .NET or Delphi - only if a RPG or COBOL programmer mixes logic with UI it seems to be the end of the world as we know it.

    Don't get me wrong - mixing (too much) business logic into the UI is always a bad idea. With Delphi in the 1990s we extracted business code into separate units - with Java we used extra classes, sometimes in separate JARs - and today every sufficiently good RPG programmer extracts the business logic into service program procedures as far as possible.

    If one doesn't do this - it is not the failure of RPG or all RPG programmers or the platform, that allows such bad programming style. So this is a non-argument to me.



    ------------------------------
    Regards,
    Daniel
    ------------------------------



  • 17.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 23, 2022 09:55 AM
    I surely stand corrected regarding Eclipse platform for my approximations (and I heavily used it in the pure java world in the past and in other tools as well); when citing it I was referring mainly to RDi (so mainly the plugin), and of course this comes not from scientifically software profiling but from anecdotal evidence having spoken and seeing and hearing what do, what say (and murmur ;) ) and how work many people and contractors "in the trenches" if they use RDi.

    There is also some decent work being done on the Visual Studio RPG plugin this days, and surely worth to check it out (of course, for now, not up to RDi in completeness and sophistication, but having a middle ground, sufficient for more tasks, less complex IDE could be an advantage too).

    Still, I insist on the concept that we need an "institutional" editor, connected, published from the host, IBM native, you don't have to mess with license on your laptop or install, a go-to editor, ready, always there, where you sit and connect and work (like SEU); ok not full featured like RDi, but, as baseline, the features present in SEU today should be present (plus full free syntax RPG support, plus IFS support if one wishes), nothing exoteric.

    Regarding JS + REST services; they are nice and can be used for a lot of use cases and external supply chain integration, portals etc. with great results.
    Still for pure and simple ERP development, it is not a conversational online interactive session based workstation and protocol (ok a mouthful ;) but take in account that an interactive session on old 5250 provides an unmatched level of visibility, introspection and easy debuggability in the system being a discrete and separate job(s) abstraction in the system).
    The "web" and http was born and thought as "disconnected" session-less protocol (for documents), and we see and witness the level of complexity and software layers that are needed in some frameworks just to add the "session" abstraction to the stack.
    Some, to circumvent all this, in some specific custom applications, just open a WebSocket just from the start and just run a specific/custom protocol over it.

    Regarding software engineering aspects: reading some dominant opinions I just think sometimes that "i" world promoted separation of concerns FROM THE START and as a grounding and overarching philosophy, i.e. you have as a separate concept a display file (a view!!!) and you have the code. It is harder to create a monolith in RPG even III then - say - in PHP. In PHP you see sometimes "echos" all around in the code intermixed with business logic etc... difficult to do it in RPG because it forces you to have a separate view concept.
    This separation allowed i.e. also today the pluggability of different view protocols and "display files" instead of the standard ones (see RPG Openaccess, used by some "modernization" suites).
    RPG nowadays can with ease support any elegant software design for business applications, so, if something "smells bad", is not today the brush, but the painter.

    On education IMHO: being RPG, especially the free syntax, a luckily lighter language in conceptual complexity compared to a heavy duty OO languages (say java, scala etc.), a normal software dev or CS can pick it up in one month after an introduction of i concepts.


    ------------------------------
    ace ace
    ------------------------------



  • 18.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    IBM Champion
    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 07:06 AM
    Why do you never answer me about using a stock picture "Elise?"

    https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/happy-mature-woman-outdoor-gm825083304-133826599

    ------------------------------
    Steve Pitcher
    ------------------------------



  • 19.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed February 16, 2022 07:30 AM
    :-D
    Dunno Steve, maybe it is AI or a generated avatar, given also the nature of the topic, given the high statistical frequency of "as400 dead" topics, the AI just picked up the signal ;DDDD


    ------------------------------
    ace ace
    ------------------------------



  • 20.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Mon October 10, 2022 11:39 AM
    Edited by david russel Tue February 28, 2023 07:32 AM

    Hello!

    Welcome to the IBM Community!

    In a single word, the answer is no! However, IBM iSeries AS400 is an outdated technology. By using AS400 systems, enterprises can't experience the required agility and flexibility to address modern business requirements and obtain growth opportunities.  AS400 modernization enables businesses to establish an infrastructure with superior flexibility and scalability. Experts from the right AS400 consulting company can execute seamless modernization. Using enterprise-grade methods, modernization experts can assure better business agility by moving iSeries workloads and applications to the Cloud environment.



    ------------------------------
    david russel
    Damco Solutions Inc
    Princeton NJ
    6096320350
    ------------------------------



  • 21.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue October 11, 2022 04:41 AM
    Edited by ace ace Tue October 11, 2022 04:41 AM
    Well, if you want to plug your company link at least use the denomination "IBMi" ... AS400 and iSeries don't exist anymore, they are dead indeed ! ;) :)

    ------------------------------
    --ft
    ------------------------------



  • 22.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue October 11, 2022 08:15 AM
    Hello friends,
    Db2 for i and SQL continue to transform the IBM i into an amazing platform that continues to meet the needs of businesses worldwide.

    Want to hear more?

    Sign up here: IBM i deetz
    BR...Scott



    ------------------------------
    Scott Forstie
    ------------------------------



  • 23.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Tue October 11, 2022 02:12 PM
    That's quite a belated "welcome" -- resurrecting a 9 month old post from an account that no longer exists because all they did was hock their company's "AS400" and "iSeries" modernization services just to what, hock your company's "AS400" and "iSeries" modernization services? LOL

    Is there any way an admin can get this forum thread locked?

    ------------------------------
    Kevin Adler
    ------------------------------



  • 24.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed January 25, 2023 10:38 AM

    Hello !

    The AS400 is dead and long live the IBM i. I started with IBM 34 and 36, I was one of the first programmers in France to convert 36 to AS400, Files to DDS, RPG II to RPG III. In 1989 I stopped talking about the IBM 36 for good. The S36 was just a subset of the AS400.

    Do the same with IBM i. AS400 is just an older subset of IBM i. Two months ago I taught RPG to new students, they had never worked with IBM i.

    I taught via RDI: Free-RPG, SQL and DDS only for interactive and print programs. They discovered the simple and powerful control language without comparison with "Windows Cmd" and "Linux Shell". I only talked about these techniques and they understood that IBM i was the best system.

    I never talked about RPG IV with columns, they don't know about the existence of RPG II or III or OCL36. To create a table (not a file), we only used "CREATE TABLE", never DDS with CRTPF… or worse CRTPF without DDS…. Why not BLDFILE! (Are you still talking about Windows 3.1?)

    The problem is that IBM i doesn't have an integrated GUI.

    I am very pleased with IBM's announcement on November 8 that .Net is now integrated with Power Linux. There is the same with POWER i with the Link2i add-on for .Net. You can see www.aumerial.com

    For me, DB2 for i is definitely the best database and IBM i the best system.

    Best regards.




    ------------------------------
    Laurent ROUILLOT
    ------------------------------



  • 25.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Wed January 25, 2023 01:50 PM
    Hi Laurent, 

    first - I agree to 100% with you - IBM i is the most fascinating system I ever had the pleasure to work on. I'm a passionate RPG developer - preferred **free - and will bei that until I retire.

    But the account of "Elise Parker" is a bit ... I don't know how to call it. She and her colleagues post provocative statements in the name of "Integrative Systems" all over the internet - and their profile pictures are stock photos from Shutterstock - here a Google Lens search for the photo - it's found all over the internet:

    So I don't know what to think about her posts. Maybe they are only some kind of address/profile collection for their company.

    Kind regards,
    Daniel





  • 26.  RE: Is IBM AS400 Dead?

    Posted Thu January 26, 2023 12:24 PM
    To be fair regarding windows, nowadays, the modern windows shell, called powershell, is quite powerful as an OS shell and can leverage an incredible number of APIs, and it is pretty elegant too.
    And guess which OS inspired its Verb-Noun command syntax compared to the anarchy of cmd.exe or *nix shells ? ;) ;)
    CL is surely robust for system things and compiled, but even PASE based scripting with real full languages (like python, php....) is pretty powerful because in the IBMi environment as you can always assume that there is a full blown database ready to be used for all purposes.

    Regarding the native UI, you hit the point here, and the problem was already discussed in this thread.
    Don't know why IBM didn't keep evolving the 5250 protocol to more advanced presentation possibilities if needed, keeping the same simple and robust conversational session approach and integration with the languages and the system.
    A good modern thin client UI in the OS itself supported by IBM would make the IBMi basically an unbeatable machine to fast develop in a no-nonsense architecture for business/ERP applications.

    ------------------------------
    --ft
    ------------------------------