My World and Welcome To It

A Blog for Shirey Consulting Services – Views and Thoughts About Just About Everything

Archive for May, 2009

Do You Weisure?

May 14

Posted by dshirey in Uncategorized | Comments off

Have you ever heard of ‘weisure’? 

 

Neither had I, until I got an email from Linda Harty of the iSystem Network Website and Magazine Forum on LinkedIn.  She had heard about it on a radio broadcast on her way home from work and realized immediately that she was a practitioner. 

 

Weisure is the habit of using smart phones, etc. to keep in touch with colleagues and your work life while simultaneously spending time with family and friends. 

 

Talk about a pandemic.  It’s every where.  A more appropriate question might be, do you know anyone who isn’t doing that sort of thing?   As I write this I am sitting (alone) in a restaurant near my house (OK, it’s actually more of a bar, but they do have food) and a guy behind me just came in with his kids in Little League uniforms and he’s talking to work on his cell phone (multiple calls) while they wait for dinner to come.  I’ll admit, even I do it sometimes although I try to be discrete.  And as I see this trend spreading and accelerating I have only one question to ask. 

 

Radar, what the H, E, double hockey sticks is wrong with us???

 

Is our work so exciting, so seductive that we can’t physically stand to be away from it?  I’m sorry, pal.  Unless you work for Victoria Secret or M6 I can’t buy that.

 

Maybe we are so incredibly important that the world can’t do without us?  Shades of Walter Mitty but I know that’s not true for me and probably not for you either. 

 

Could it be that our families are so annoying that even work is a pleasant diversion?  Hmmmm, I may have to seriously consider that one.  But no, probably not. 

 

So what’s the deal?  How many of us are ‘on’, 24 X 7 while being paid, in adjusted dollars, for about 6 X 4?  Why, when the loyalty companies show employees is at an all time low, are we more committed than ever?  Are we that afraid of losing our jobs?  Are we desperately trying to convince ourselves that what we are doing really is important?  Have we been seduced by the marketing hype that says you’re not really living if your not communicating with someone who isn’t standing next to you? 

 

Or is it as simple as this – people often act irrationally, and seldom in their own self interest? 

 

I honestly don’t know.  And I’m not sure I even want to guess about this one.  But it seems odd, doesn’t it?  What do you think??? 

What 6.1 is Telling Us

May 12

Posted by dshirey in System i | Comments off

It seems like so long ago when we switched from CISC to RISC.  That was a hardware upgrade but part of the process was to run all programs through a ‘conversion’ process that got it ready for the brave new RISC world.  And the catch there was that to make it through this process the module had to be ‘observable’.  This meant that the ‘creation data’ had to be available to the conversion program.  If it wasn’t, then you needed to formally recompile the program from source and create that creation data before it could be converted. 

 

As a result, many of us had to scramble through our ancillary software packages, looking for modules that didn’t have this creation data, and then getting that data or else the source from our software vendor.   If you had a maintenance contract with the vendor that generally wasn’t too difficult, although it was one more thing you had to do.  But for those who weren’t on maintenance it was more time consuming and expensive because it usually meant going back on maintenance or else paying an upfront ‘fix’ fee (or both).  But then it was done and over.  Never going to have to go through that again! 

 

And for a number of releases of i5/OS that seemed to be true.  You could bring yourself up to the next level of the operating system and except for making sure you had the right PTF’s loaded, generally for the Java Toolkit or some similar module, there wasn’t much question whether your application packages would work or not.  Life was good.

 

But then along came V6R1.  Suddenly there was another ‘conversion’ step.  No hardware change this time, it has to do with improvements to the i5/OS performance, functionality, and integrity.   Once again people are going to have to go back to their software suppliers and get a patch to help them with those modules that are not observable. 

 

When we went from CISC to RISC that seemed like a one time event.  But the fact that this conversion is for performance, functionality, and integrity reasons makes you stop and wonder; is this a trend, is this something that’s going to happen every five or six releases, is this some crazy conspiracy of the liberal elite? 

 

The trouble is, of course, no one can say, not even IBM.  But I think you’d have a hard time getting decent odds that it won’t happen again, and that has to make you wonder if you need to include that when you are considering whether or not to renew maintenance on one of your ancillary software products.  It is tempting these days (dropping maintenance).  After all, many times you don’t get that much of a return on your dollars, particularly if you’ve had the package for a few years and don’t call the help line every other day.  It’s hard to justify the extra cost when budgets are being scanned relentlessly for fat.  Or maybe that insurance policy it provides is worth it.    

 

Before you make that decision, here’s something to keep in mind.   According to IBM, any program created on 5.1 or later will be able to be converted even if it’s creation data is missing.  No, I’m serious, dude.  The MI will be able to figure things out from the object.  Only objects created on 4.5 or prior will require the creation data to actually be with the object.  This wasn’t true the last time we went through a conversion.  Back then, as soon as you got to RISC you could start creating modules and then strip the creation data away from them, thereby causing future problems.  Doesn’t look like you can do that anymore.     

 

Maybe this time the trick will be to identify all of the programs that are not observable, get fixes for them (either the creation data or source so you can re-compile) and then make sure that whatever new goes on your i from that point on is observable or was created in a post 4.5 environment.  And then you can agonize over whether or not to drop maintenance on your favorite package without having to worry about future conversions. 

 

Of course, you could just stay on 5.4.  It will probably run well until the end of this century and that should take it past the point where you care.  I do know people who are still on 4.3 and it’s running long and strong.  But that’s a solution that sends chills down my back.  What if something should go wrong?  How would you explain that to management?  Plus, we are seeing serious enhancements to the power and versatility of the i with each software upgrade.  In this day of technology can you really cut yourself off from them?  I don’t think so.  The trick today is to see how quickly you can get up on a new, more powerful release, not how long you can hang onto the past.    

 

Obviously, there are some things to think about with the 6.1 release.  And you might want to start thinking soon.  Let’s see, when is that sunset date for 5.4?   (Especially since most of us aren’t even there yet.) 

Infor Contract Options

May 12

Posted by dshirey in PRMS | Comments off

Back in the day, there was only one type of software contract available – the flat fee perpetual license.  You bought it, you owned it.  Forever.  There might be a maintenance fee attached, giving you the right to get upgrades and contact the help line, but that was separate from the contract. 

 

The first complication to this was tiered pricing.  It occurred to the software sellers that they could offer multiple prices if they based the cost on the size of your computer.  That way they could charge small companies a little and big companies a lot for essentially the same package.  In addition, it allowed an additional revenue stream because when you changed from one box to another, the new box was almost inevitably more powerful than the old and so you migrated very nicely from one tier to another.  That in turn would bump up your maintenance which was calculated as a percentage of the current purchase price.  This was very popular until people really began to hate it, mostly because it complicated the process of getting a new box.  Often the new box was cheaper than the old one, but once you factored in all the increased maintenance costs it could be much more expensive. 

 

Seeking to take some of the pressure off the tier, software sellers introduced the ‘seat’ license where the cost was based on how many people you had using the software.  This was quite popular in the 90’s and still is but it has it’s drawbacks too, most notably, defining what a ‘seat’ was.  Was that one, real physical person, or was it a signon entry in WRKACTJOB (in which case one person might have several signons at one time, possibly with different user ID’s, and so be double or triple counted)? 

 

But all three of those options (forever, tier, and seat based licensing) all had one thing in common.  They were perpetual licenses where even if you dropped maintenance you still had a legal right to use that software. 

 

Over the past ten years, we have seen repeated attempts to move from perpetual licenses  to ‘usage’ licenses where you have the right to use the software only as long as the software supplier says you can (generally that means while you are on maintenance).  Drop maintenance and the supplier can drop you from being authorized to use the software.  In every day parlance that is referred to as ‘being trapped’.  For the software supplier’s it’s defined as a ‘consistent revenue stream’. 

 

The latest salvo in this ongoing battle is the announcement by Infor that some of their newer products, like My Day and EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) will now be available in the familiar ‘on premises’ format as well as via ‘hosted’ and ‘subscription’ contracts. 

 

Hosted and subscription are both flavors of Software as a Service (SAAS).  This term has been around for a while but is really getting some attention now.  Hosted SAAS has you purchasing an actual copy of the software but rather than having to install it on your machine, it is installed and run from a machine controlled by Infor.  You establish a connection to that machine and then run the software from there.   

 

Subscription SaaS is akin to cloud computing because now you do not actually own a copy of the software but are rather using a copy that is being used by a number of other customers simultaneously.  The data files associated with that software would be yours (your data would be kept separate from the other clients who are using that software) but the question of who owns that data is a little more vague. 

 

For the Hosted contract you would be charged your normal license purchase price, plus a support fee (I’m assuming that’s ‘maintenance’), and a ‘hosting/managed services fee’ (to cover the bother and expense Infor would go to hosting your software.  Subscription contracts would not have a license purchase cost (instead having a license rental charge) but the support fee is there as well as a ‘managed services and hosting fee’.   I think you can see the difference. 

 

Much of this is still evolving and the rules will undoubtedly change based on the mutual tug of war between Infor and it’s clients.  For us in the PRMS world, things are still status quo.  Since PRMS is not a strategic product for Infor, it will not be a part of this brave new world of licensing.   Those who are on a permanent license, stay on a permanent license and no other options are really offered, although I suppose if the need came up Infor might be flexible. 

 

But if you went to LX, that would be a somewhat different story.  Anyone upgrading from PRMS to LX would not actually be upgrading.  You would be purchasing a brand new license for LX and then migrating your data from PRMS to LX.   And LX will be available either with an ‘on site’ license (although it’s unclear to me if that means permanent or not) and ‘hosted’.  It will not be available as a subscription at this time although when there is a demand for it I’m sure it will appear. 

 

Flexibility.  That’s what it’s all about.  Or complexity.  It’s one of those two.  Either way, make sure you know what you’re doing contract wise.  It’s not your grandfather’s license anymore. 

PRMS Patch for 6.1

May 12

Posted by dshirey in PRMS | Comments off

In a surprise (well, it was a surprise to me) announcement (it wasn’t actually an announcement, it was something I basically tripped over) Infor has said that a patch will be required to have PRMS run successfully on i5/OS 6.1. 

 

Apparently, this patch is required because of the observability requirements in 6.1 and there are a couple of programs in menu master that deal with licensing and such that are observability challenged.  They don’t have source (nor will Infor release source on these for obvious reasons) and so a patch is required to provide the creation data. 

 

This patch will be required for PRMS releases 8.4, 9.0, 9.2, and 10.0.  A patch is not required for 9.1 (go figure).  Oh, and you have to be on maintenance to get the patch (to the best of my knowledge, there is no extra charge for this). 

 

So, if you are doing your 6.1 planning right now, add that task to the list. 

 

And, if you are not on maintenance, contact SCS to see what you can do.Â