IBM's Rational software group is bringing big changes to its System i application development tools and compilers. IBM introduced new Rational products, the latest System i business language, and enhancements to RPG IV alongside its V6R1 announcements last week. The tools will be available March 21 with V6R1 and related IBM solutions.

Many of the changes, IBM says, came about from customer interest in seeing IBM break its WDS and related toolsets into components that would let shops pay for only the pieces and products they really need rather than shelling out for all-inclusive bundles with their System i boxes.

A trio of System iNEWS team members, Sharon Hoffman, Rita-Lyn Sanders, and Chris Maxcer, spoke earlier this week with George Farr, who is the IBM Rational worldwide product manager for System i tools and compilers, to discuss the changes and new directions. Here are some key excerpts from the conversation:

System iNEWS: Describe the announcements IBM is making for System i application development.

Farr: This is probably one of the biggest releases IBM has made for application development on the System i. We're doing major changes in the way we ship the product to customers, and we are introducing new products and the end of marketing for others. One of the new products we're introducing is Rational Developer for System i. For short we call it RDi. RDi is targeting System i developers for edit/compile/debug. The other product is RDi SOA, which gives to System i developers, in addition to edit/compile/debug, web capabilities. In RDi SOA we're introducing our newest business language in a product called IBM Rational Business Developer, which will contain EGL [Enterprise Generation Language] as the newest business language targeting the System i.

RDi and RDi SOA are the new products, as well as HATS for 5250, which now contains both HATS and WebFacing in one product. That's what we're introducing from a workstation perspective.

System iNEWS: OK, we have essentially three new workstation products: RDi, RDi for SOA, and HATS for 5250. What about the server side?

Farr: From a server perspective, RPG IV continues to improve, and the V6R1 release is no different. We're introducing major enhancements in RPG IV and COBOL in this release. Let's start digging into the packaging. How is this packaging changing?

We have taken WDS -- because customers have the perception that we're giving them too much in just one product -- and we're splitting WDS into different components or features. WDS will have three different features, so when you order WDS you can pick and choose what you're ordering. You will be able to order ILE compilers as one feature, Heritage Compilers as another feature, and ADTS as the third feature. Those will be ordered separately. WDSc 7.0 will be put to end of marketing and the same with WDSc AE [Advanced Edition].

Each product has its own different price. So you no longer pay a tier price on WDS. Now you pay individual prices per option that you choose; furthermore, the price is based on the user and not on the tier. So if the customer has five active programmers who need to use ILE compilers, they'll have to pay for five licenses.

Another piece of news that customers may find very good is the fact that WDSc AE . . . the functionality that our customers complained about in the past, where Application Diagram and Screen Designer is put in WDSc AE and IBM is forcing us to buy WDSc AE at a ridiculously high price . . . that's no longer the case because now we're moving all the System i-specific functionality into the entry level part of RDi. So Screen Designer, Application Diagram -- anything to do with the enhancement of System i tooling -- is in RDi.

We are also shipping a second release of the Application Diagram as part of RDi. It has many new enhancements. We are shipping a second phase of the tech preview in the Screen Designer, and in addition to all this, we have added various customer requirements to RSE [Remote System Explorer].

System iNEWS: OK, so these changes answer some of the packaging concerns customers have raised . . . what about RPG? Any key enhancements related to V6R1?

Farr: In every release since the inception of RPG IV we've been investing in RPG IV. There isn't a release that we have shipped without investment. RPG is still our strategic language, and we still invest in it. The biggest enhancement we've done in RPG is multi-threading -- V6R1 brings true multi-threading in RPG, which lets RPG contribute to SOA and web services and web development tools. Now, if you have an application being called about a million times off the web and it's written in RPG, you've got a solid RPG that is multi-threaded -- and obviously you get better performance and output.

The second important enhancement in RPG is local file support in procedures. Again, this will help people modernize and help them move into web services. We have also increased limits in RPG.

System iNEWS: It sounds like you've been busy. How about a customer-focused question. What if a customer has RPG today on V5R4 and ILE and Heritage and ADTS . . . will that customer be able to upgrade to V6R1?

Farr: Absolutely, but quantified. If you are paying software subscription, and you own SWMA [software maintenance agreement], then yes you will be qualified to -- or entitled to -- go to ILE and Heritage as well as ADTS. The only thing is, you will be given a limited number of licenses, but in a way a generous number because we looked at the different tiers and said, "OK, an average number of users of P5 is about two to three." So we entitled those P5 customers to the average number of licenses plus one for Heritage, ILE, and ADTS. For a P10, you'll be given a number of licenses as well, and for P20, the same thing. That's if you're on software subscription -- you'll be able to upgrade to V6R1.

Talking about RDi SOA . . . RDi SOA is our web development tooling. We're very excited to introduce our newest business language -- EGL -- and that is a big deal for System i customers. Why is it a big deal? Well, EGL will really add a very positive twist on application development for the System i in terms of the web. It lets developers extend existing RPG applications onto the web. It provides a strategic web development environment for i5/OS. We're also looking at many ways to have RPG and EGL integrate to give System i customers a really good web experience. You'll see more investments in that area.

System iNEWS: Can you address RDi in terms of entitlement? We've been telling people that if they have SEU, they have WDSc. How is that changing, because that will impact our migration to these newer tools?

Farr: In the past, everything was lumped together, and WDSc was part of WDS. IBM put everything together, and the perception from our customers was, "IBM gave us everything for free, we aren't paying for it, and now all of a sudden IBM is charging us for RDi." The truth is that customers paid for WDS -- they paid for it as part of buying the system. The only difference is that they paid for WDS and they got everything. The P5 is $3,650, P10 paid $10,000, and P20 paid $32,000 for WDS. What we're doing in the pricing and our business model now is -- instead of giving everything away, whether they like it or not or whether they use it or not -- is to make it more of a win-win situation: The customers buy only what they need. It works for IBM for investment purposes because if we know what we're selling, then we know what to invest in. Therefore, developers are not entitled to RDi or RDi SOA per se because RDi and RDi SOA are brand new products. Developers are still entitled to WDSc 7.0 because that is still out there.

System iNEWS: So RDi and RDi SOA are clearly the directions in which you'd like to see System i customers head?

Farr: What we encourage people to do is move to RDi and RDi SOA because that's where all IBM's investment is going to be. We will be charging some money for it, so we can take that money and pour it back into the development to improve it and keep improving it. Everything has a price, but I'm going to twist it and make it even more positive by saying that we're also investigating to see if, in the future, customers have ADTS and want to move to RDi . . . we're looking at the possibility of entitling them to RDi or maybe giving them some discounted price so that we can encourage them to move to RDi.

System iNEWS: So how is the new pricing model going to shake out for most customers? You mentioned licensing previously that was a little better than the average. . . .

Farr: In our new pricing models, some customers are going to be happy because those customers who have one user or two users -- and this is the typical P5 customer -- they might be paying a lot less now than they used to pay because, say, they only need ILE RPG. They only have to buy ILE and RDi and be up and running with less money. Now, those customers who are sitting on a P5 and have about 50 developers using the machine, well, they're going to have to pay a lot more. That is justifiable because they have so many developers using those compilers. Some are going to break even. The bottom line, though, is that the model puts us in a business model where we can continue investment in these products. We're starting by getting to know who is using what, and we'll invest in the proper places.

System iNEWS: Would you take away ADTS and give RDi as an upgrade or would there be an overlap?

Farr: The last statement regarding entitlement to RDi -- if you're an ADTS user, that statement is a possibility. It isn't something that has been done. We're looking into it. In my mind it makes sense because we want people to move into RDi, and offering them an entitlement or giving them a discount will help us move the masses into these new technologies. When and if it will happen hasn't been decided yet.

System iNEWS: When we look at WDSc today, it's true that it has a lot of stuff in it that System i developers are not interested in. We can see that Remote System Explorer will be part of RDi and the Java development will be part of RDi SOA, but what about things such as data perspectives and some of the web development tools? Are those all in the SOA version?

Farr: Yes. It has everything to do with web development. Part of the reason, also the fundamental strategy we're following -- and it's again because of customer input -- is kind of to offer the products based more on the role of the developers as opposed to giving them everything. So the role of the developer for RDi that we defined is really for edit/compile/debug for RPG programs. There is no such thing as web development in it.

Now if a developer wants to be a web developer, then he's going to move up to RDi SOA, and that's where he's going to get the JSF designer, RBD, which contains the new EGL -- the newest business language – and anything to do with web development that he needs will be there. That will be our web enablement.

Now, if he wants to do WebFacing and HATS, the toolkit will be available for free; however, the runtime will be chargeable like in the past. That will be as part of HATS for 5250.

Furthermore, if the developer is kind of an advanced J2EE developer and has used WDSc Advanced Edition and is dependent on that, well, he can go ahead and buy that. RDi will plug into it. That's where he gets his full-blown Java development environment.

If you look at it in a nutshell, there are four different development environments for System i customers. You have RDi, you have RDi SOA, you have HATS for 5250, and also you have rapid application development tools for advanced J2EE.

System iNEWS: Within those web development tools, we have the System i-specific tools, including some of our web services wizards, but also some of the other pieces. Are those part of RDi or RDi SOA?

Farr: Anything to do with web development, including web services, is part of RDi SOA.

System iNEWS: So what IBM is thinking is that if people are transitioning from SEU, RDi would be everything they need initially.

Farr: Initially, yes.

System iNEWS: Then, as they start to move into web development, they'll want RDi SOA and then the other generic Rational tools, as in not-System i-specific -- those would come even farther down the line even though we have very few people in the System i community who are using them right now?

Farr: Right. All this packaging and tooling positions us into the future in terms of other technologies we're working on right now. One of which is Jazz. Jazz is a publicly known project that we're working on. That's going to be another exciting thing that you're going to see coming in the future . . . everything is based on the same technologies -- Eclipse -- so all the Rational set of products can share and work concurrently side by side with RDi and RDi SOA.

System iNEWS: Because it is all Eclipse-based, then any other Eclipse plug-in. . . .

Farr: If it plugs into Eclipse, then it will plug into RDi.

System iNEWS: The marketing . . . won't be WebSphere developer products anymore, it'll be the Rational developer?

Farr: Yes, and I think everybody welcomed that, because for some reason, WebSphere meant to people that even if you do edit/compile/debug, you need WebSphere to do that. That wasn't the case. So really RDi is the proper name for it.

System iNEWS: Are we also going to see as a result that if you have an existing shop where you're using some spectrum of these tools, various compilers, and WDSc, they're going to get a pricing change as well because RDi is going to be chargeable even if they're on software subscription?

Farr: Absolutely right. RDi is a brand new product, and given that, you have to pay for it. Whatever amount you pay for RDi, you can also buy software subscription separately for RDi, and when you pay that subscription, then you will be entitled to any future releases.

System iNEWS: So if you do that for RDi and then at some point when you decide to upgrade to RDi SOA, there's some kind of. . . .

Farr: Discount, yes.