In his keynote address at last week's RPG & DB2 Summit in Las Vegas, George Farr, IBM solution manager of System i development tools, discussed System i customer concerns over the packaging of key functions — namely the Screen Designer and the Application Diagrammer — within the recently announced WDSc 7.0.

According to onsite reports from the RPG & DB2 Summit crew, Farr acknowledged that the current packaging places the Screen Designer and the Application Diagrammer squarely within the fee-based WDSc Advanced Edition but then hinted that this is a temporary measure that sets the stage for IBM to componentize those and other functions within WDSc Advanced Edition with the intention to make them available a la carte at far lower license fees than the full WDSc Advanced Edition carries. Currently, a developer who wants to use one of those functions must purchase the full WDSc Advanced Edition.

The audience, made up of about a 100 RPG developers, laughed when Farr chided them for wanting "everything" within WDSc and wanting it all for free. He went on to explain that continuing to add new functions to WDSc on a no-charge basis was not economically feasible for IBM. At the same time, he said that IBM understands that investing in the full version of WDSc Advanced Edition might not be economically feasible for shops that are not working with Java or Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). The audience murmured in approval at Farr's conjecture that the pricing of individual functions such as the Screen Designer might range in the hundreds, rather than thousands, of dollars to keep them affordable.

Farr observed that the recent controversy surrounding Screen Designer and Application Diagrammer obscured other important enhancements in WDSc 7.0, many of which were requested by WDSc users. He emphasized that IBM has not taken any functionality away from the users and encouraged them to continue to communicate their enhancement ideas and other requirements to him and others at IBM.

In a later discussion, a few attendees expressed disappointment in IBM's plan, stating that they had already paid for screen design functionality by virtue of their software subscription. After reiterating the reasons for the move towards paid functions and meeting with continued resistance, Farr said, "Trust me, you'll be happy, and I can't say more than that."

Farr went on to press people to move to RPG IV, which he said better positions them for the possibility of creating cross-platform applications. Farr assured the audience that IBM's investment in RPG will continue but noted that IBM must also provide a path for RPG programmers. He mentioned eGL as a possible future language due to its strength in multi-platform development, improved user interfaces, and its ability to co-exist very nicely with RPG.

He stressed that the requirement stems from two trends — the increasing desire of IT managers to keep their future platform options open and growing pressure from the vendor community for closer compatibility between the System i and other platforms.

A lively discussion ensued when Summit speaker Aaron Bartell of Krengel Technologies suggested that IBM was catering to a small group of very vocal customers and vendors while the silent majority valued the unique strengths of the System i and remained happy with the thought of a proprietary platform. He challenged IBM to consider a different strategy — to preserve and build upon the very things that have garnered such strong loyalty for the System i and its predecessors. The statement met with applause from the audience.

Farr encouraged companies that have found success with RPG IV to stay with it. However, he said, companies looking for cross-platform development should consider eGL.