Just yesterday I received an email that from a Smalltalker out at a utility in the midwest. A utility which I never had heard of before using Smalltalk. He told me that after seeing my post in c.l.s regarding FPL and its Smalltalk systems and that he contacted a colleague over there and was told that the system was still in Smalltalk but that apparently there was a multi-year plan (mind you not project) to move over to Java. That came to no surprise to me. I was told as much at least 4 years ago. The fact of the matter is that FPL is a “Big Blue” shop. Big Blue exerts an incredible influence over many in IT at FPL. I was once told by a senior manager while I was working there that there was a saying in IT that basically said that “one will never get fired if they go with Big Blue”. Big Blue is what FPLers call IBM. I’m sure that they did not invent the nickname. IBM actually has offices smack in the middle of at least the Miami office. Their influence is truly great. It was not long after IBM got into the Smalltalk game that at least the Juno office starting porting their Smalltalk apps to VisualAge for Smalltalk and it was not because they had a better can opener. When IBM changed their game to Java they began exerting great pressure to port those apps to Websphere, A lot of the pressure comes from IBM’s insinuated threat to dropping support for VAST. Keep in mind that IBM has been at this for awhile and yet, as far as I have been told none of the apps have been actually ported. One app was wholesale replaced by a package. I am not trying to debate whether FPL is a Smalltalk shop or a Websphere shop. However, the Smalltalk apps have so far survived very powerful forces and they have done so because they work, they work quite well, and because most business units don’t want to burn their money for at best very expensive replacement functionality. Again, I do take satisfaction in knowing that applications that I helped build over eight years ago are still out there helping FPL better service their customers. As far as the port goes, we shall see. First of all, what the Juno offices do is not necessarily what the Miami offices will do. As as I recall all the apps in Miami are VisualWorks and were not ported to VAST which gives me some hope that next hurricane season I may once again blog about how happy I am that those apps survived yet another year.