RS/6000 Migration questions...

[Lance Hartmann]

This is my first article, hope it makes it and am forgiven for
any violations of protocol.... :-)

A colleague who owns a number of machining manufacturing companies
up north is considering abandoning his amalgamation of two (2)
IBM 3600's, non-network'd PC's, etc.  He's heard a lot about the RS/6000
and queried me since I worked at IBM on the development of the RS/6000
(comm. devices, drivers).  Unfortunately, I'm unaware of the user
population and their applications of the RS/6000 so I thought I'd try
to post out here....

My friend has customized software on the 3600 handling all the accounting
needs and manufacturing scheduling (my guess is that it's mostly COBOL?).
The PCs are used in engineering, CAD/CAM, etc.  What's commercially
available out there on the RS/6000 to handle this?  I'm sure SOMEONE
has accounting available, but is it any good?  Ease of use?  Can anyone
guess difficulties in porting 3600 COBOL to RS/6000 COBOL?  Also, does
anyone know of someone who supports bar-code readers hardware/software
for the RS/6000?  What about user population sizes with respect to
the different models of the RS/6000?  My friend needs somewhere in
the area of 25-40 concurrent users.  Response times?

Many thanks to all in advance!
-- 
Lance G. Hartmann - cs.utexas.edu!devnull!lance (Internet)
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DISCLAIMER:  All opinions/actions expressed herein reflect those of my VERY OWN
and shall NOT bear any reflection upon Tandem or anyone else for that matter.