The Web bubble is starting to burst. Network administrators are finally being forced to tell management the truth about their Internet expenditures. The cost of implementing working Web systems—systems that previously were touted as “almost free”—is rising steadily. The prototype Web projects that MIS managers whisked through budget evaluations last year on a wave of hyperbole and enthusiasm are now being more closely evaluated. The cost/benefit ratios, while still impressive, are not what management expected. Implementing and maintaining a Web site is proving to be exceedingly expensive, tying up precious MIS personnel without demonstrating measurable bottom- line benefits.

As you read this, beautiful, graphically rich Web pages are filling the bandwidth of the Internet and degrading the overall efficiency of the network. To make matters worse, the whole premise of a “free” information superhighway is now being scrutinized by the Supreme Court as it wrestles with the Communications Decency Act. Why and how was the Internet turned over to marketing types and lawyers? Whose idea was it? How can we in MIS get it back?

We have to recognize that we are living through a technical revolution in program development environments (e.g. object-oriented programming and multitasking operating systems) and communication transport protocol standardization (TCP/IP and sockets). It’s this convergence of technologies that unleashed the beast that is the Internet. Although we can never return to the simple days of configuring terminal emulation and file transfer programs, we don’t have to sit idly by as our technical resources are sucked away in the undertow of the Web surf. We’ve got to buoy up the critical tools that can ensure the success of our MIS projects. Client Access/400 is one of those tools, but it’s obviously not the only one. Windows 95 and NT are two others, but they only provide a transitory platform to the next operating system upgrade. Individual software packages, such as

ShowCase Strategy, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft’s new Outlook PIM provide excellent values, but they are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that is still being engineered. The AS/400 itself is merely a temporary player until IBM decides to reinvent itself with another machine. The same is true of the Pentium, RISC, or other CPUs we use as our servers. What will remain after all the software and hardware upgrade cycles have spun the present products and utilities into dust?

What will be left, of course, are our business applications, the code that creates them, and the application frameworks that enable them. That’s what makes IBM’s use of Lotus Notes so intriguing; it’s the first real business application enabler to come to the midrange arena in some time. It’s not just a proprietary protocol, not just a utility, and not just a simple mail application, but a framework in which mission-critical communication and workflow systems can be built. It uses the power of TCP/IP protocols; object-oriented programming design; a distributed database model; and a heterogeneous, cross-platform architecture to combine the promise of the Internet with the requirements of business computing. During this next year, as the Lotus Domino server becomes natively available to the AS/400, shops will face new opportunities and challenges to integrate the Client Access/400 utilities with the evolving capabilities of Notes.

With this in mind, Timothy Laurent’s article is offered as a primer to the future of Notes integration with the AS/400. Tim not only walks us through the configuration and programming process but also provides us with a case study to reveal the psychology of the Notes developer. For those of us who engineer solutions with a combination of DB2/400 and other databases, this article should be very resonant

I this you’ll also find answers to questions about the capabilities of Notes for large application development and a discussion of some TCP/IP-related issues, including how to configure the 5250 Workstation Gateway for a TCP/IP intranet. Steve Gau explains the implementation of ShowCase Strategy over TCP/IP, and Mike Drummer discusses the role of Client Access/400’s AnyNet encapsulation for TCP/IP.

In this same issue, John Lyons shows you how to configure CPI-C support for Client Access/400, and Allyn Uptain discusses his success in making PC Support on an Advanced 36 work with Windows 95. If you’ve been wondering how to build those custom printer definition files for Client Access/400, Dan Wood’s article will show you the way. Finally, Joe Hertvik gives us the overview of what’s available for technical support to Client Access/400 over the Internet.

All of these articles are aimed toward our goal of giving you a leg up in your decisions and supporting your work in the real world of business computing. The message we’re sending is clear: you won’t be blinded by the Internet hype as long as you’ve got the information and tools to make the right decisions.