May (05-05) - Old iron dies hard

May, 2005 Editorial (corrected)

Not to pat myself on the back, but the number of calls for solutions has increased so "I think we are (over)due for a big run on IBM 6400's" has manifested. The market to replace the behemoth 4248, 4245, 6262, and 6252 printers has awoken. There's still some hope that someone will jump in to the print-band business, but the investment is larger than the potential remaining market, so unless prices for printbands make a big leap upward, I don't see an entrepreneurial opportunity.

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I attended my first face-to-face meeting with colleagues (?) and was pleased to meet many people at ASCDI in Orlando. I'm so pleased to have seen some old faces (no, I didn't mean it that way....). I learned some interesting stuff, reminisced, and shook hands with many. I didn't have a lot in common with many of them. I am just not in the leasing, Cisco, or Sun business, so thank goodness that I I found others from my world.

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IBM remains mysterious in their plans for the desktop impact market. The IBM 423x family (4230, 4232), heir to the more sturdy but older than the legendary IBM 4224 printers. I have advice for all the users of AS/400 and S/390 printers: stock up on them now. As supplies of third party sources for 4247 "junk" dry up, users will be best advised to get and keep IBM 4230's. If you use impact printers anywhere in your infrastructure that run off the "mainframe" you NEED IPDS on your printer to avoid the "black hole" Beta error! 4230 printers have IPDS and can be upgraded to ethernet ipds. If you've read this far then you can't say that you didn't see it coming....

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Also, IBM dropped a bomb -- Starting with V5r3, your AS/400 you will no longer be able to sell the proof of entitlement. Did you hear that? An indefinite amount of software investment just vanished.

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I continue to work on the web site, upping the reference materials that are linked from the various models. I have a lot of accumulated info, knowledge and data. Look for tweaks and updates.

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Over the past couple weeks, I have found a palpable slowdown in the hardware business. Others echo this sentiment. I have always believed that this industry is a good proxy for the economy at large. We tend to be sensitive to economic changes. I suspect that our economy is in for a rough ride over the coming years. Surely Americans have done miraculous things in our short history, but this is particularly difficult: Stagnant real wages, rising interest rates, ballooning government deficits, school performance deteriorating, personal debt at unmanageable levels. Sounds like a recipe for struggle. Keep it simple: Spend less than you earn.