Comments on: Query/400 replacement needed

By: tomliotta

tomliotta — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:07:07 +0000

BTW, QM has been IBM’s preferred query product over Query/400 for the past 15 years or so. It’s why Query/400 has been effectively dead for so long, though people keep paying for Query/400 for some reason even when they have QM. And QM can run Query/400 queries, so they don’t need to be lost.

Tom

By: tomliotta

tomliotta — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 11:03:32 +0000

it is clear that IBM has put Query/400 on the path to extinction…

This has been obvious for the past 15 years or so. Why be concerned now?

In any case, have you reviewed the capabilities of Query Manager? (If you have SQL, you already have the QM product.)

Any of your users who create queries should quickly adapt to the “Prompted” mode, since it’s similar to Query/400. Other users who’ve seen SQL may prefer the “SQL” mode. All of them could take advantage of QM Forms to create custom reports that go well beyond Query/400′s capabilities.

If you haven’t looked into it, you should study the user manuals to get a full picture of what it can do.

Tom

By: woodengineer

woodengineer — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:37:53 +0000

We have used Interactive Query from New Generation Software for many years with great success. This is their bread and butter product so you don’ t have to worry about it being headed for extinction. Also, the product was developed very closely with IBM so it works well.
One feature our folks like is the ability to output query results directly to Excel without requiring any manual processes. It just runs the query, launches Excel and populates the cells.

All of the standard stuff is there plus much more.

They also have a very nice method for accepting run-time selection with prompting. This has saved us from having to develop multiple queries that only have different record selection.

They also have an excellent support staff.

I do not work for New Generation Software . . . just a very satisfied user of 20 years.

By: sbatsi

sbatsi — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:44:09 +0000

I looked into this perhaps a year ago, and I was quoted a licensing fee that would stun a horse. Perhaps the product is worth that amount of money to someone who is going to use it to do all the things it is capable of, but again, all I need is something that is modestly more capable than Query/400.

By: shanse3

shanse3 — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:46:03 +0000

You might want to check out m-Power. From what you described, m-Power could handle everything you currently use Query/400 for. Here’s the product page: http://www.mrc-productivity.com/products/

Disclaimer: I work for mrc, the company that sells m-Power. So, I’m a little biased when I say it is a great tool, but it’s definitely something you should check out if you’re looking to replace Query/400.

By: sbatsi

sbatsi — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:12:45 +0000

When you start investigating DB2 Web Query, there are indeed lots of issues relating to licensing, support, and cost; it is an example of what I meant when I originally stated that most of the proposed Query/400 replacements are significantly more capable and more complicated – as well as more expensive. By the way, this description fits NGS-IQ as well, and a person could probably put together a pretty funny video about it too, perhaps delving into the issue of why, if the product is so easy to set up and use (as they claim), NGS REQUIRES you to purchase two training classes along with the license. That’s pretty funny to me… ;-}

I am now researching DataQuant from IBM; does anyone have any experience with it? IBM is not giving it away, but the price is reasonable and includes everything you need, rather than having to pay $x for this feature, $y for that feature,… and so on. There are still complications to deal with – after a few hours of work, I have still been unable to get the software to connect to the i5 because of some problem with the JDBC driver.

Regards, Steve B

By: cwc

cwc — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:54:17 +0000

I ran across this the other day. Here's a pretty humourous look at Web Query, by Randall Munson, quite the comedian. http://www.ngsi.com/company/our_menu_has_changed.html And another: http://www.ngsi.com/company/elevator_act1.html Apparently, New Generation Software has something better - Qport Office http://www.ngsi.com/company/query400replacement.html http://www.ngsi.com/company/qportoffice.html

By: lovemyi

lovemyi — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:24:45 +0000

The nice part of ataying with the IBM Web Query replacement is that most of your Query/400 queries migrate over to the new web product with no problems.

The bad part is that on a model 515 you only get a few development licenses for names users I believe. You can go the IBM website for System i and search for WebQuery for the license numbers.

There are trade offs with this approach but if managed it should not be a big deal and it sould be $0 additional cost unless you need to add more named developers than the limit.

By: sbatsi

sbatsi — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:12:51 +0000

Thanks for the link… I will follow up.

Regards,

Steve B

By: cwc

cwc — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:28:26 +0000

Okay, thanks for clarifying. I like your car analogy. Take a look at this -- looks like Sequel ended up at Help Systems, perhaps it's worth investigating. http://www.helpsystems.com/intel/special.html