Electronic Data Interchange is one of those major new applications that IBM looks to to eat up mainframe MIPS and keep its large systems business on the up-and-up, but the mainframe business is in the doldrums because too many users ignore IBM’s preferred solution, and instead put in cheaper machines to handle the additional work: it will hurt IBM if too many users simply extract Interchange data from existing IMS or DB2 databases, download it to a PS/2 and use that as the communicating machine which is why DataInterchange/2 for the PS/2 costs a hefty $4,000 and another $3,000 for each extra copy, and runs under already expensive OS/2 only (CI No 1,150); even worse for IBM would be if too many users decide to extract the IMS or DB/2 data and download it – heaven forfend! – to a DEC VAX for transmission.
