SNIP
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>All I can say is that I think it's wrong to make a decision just because you hate a particular vendor.

Me too, at least as a developer. I can see a burned decision maker thinking differently though.

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>During the past couple of weeks, as I was doing forensic work on a project that was developed under an IBM platform (and was doomed), I had to learn all I could about the platform in order to make a sound recommendation, and I personally couldn't find a single advantage that would make that platform advisable. Otherwise, believe me, I'd be touting the wonderful things that an as400 could do. As things are, I didn't find any.

At this point in its life cycle, you may be right.
In its heyday it had low cost, a genuine database, huge scalability, and a large pool of skilled programmers available.
And I can't blame people who have them for keeping on using them. Just as Y2K was "caused" by systems outliving their plans, so the same happens with hardware too.
I don't know if there are any conversion tools out there to migrate to something else, but there may well be a market there.

cheers

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>Alex