Re: Changed to: Interactive Tax

First, I don't think you should stress about whether or not your
question starts a flame war, this list is for questions and yours is
valid. There'll be various answers and then we'll all fight about it and
the flame wars will start, but that isn't your fault. It's just us
opinionated jerks that feel the need to flame!

About your question. companies seldom do things in order to "drive away
revenue." IBM does whatever they are going to do in order to make more
money. But in this area (the "Interactive Tax") there is some
speculation that IBM wants iSeries customers to get more involved with
new technologies.

That is speculation, though. IBM, like most companies, makes their money
from selling people what they want. IBM has a product that people want,
the 5250 data stream, and IBM wants to get money for it. It turns out
that this product is efficient and cost effective for people to use and
has no other vendor. So that leaves IBM in the position of being able to
set pricing for it that they couldn't if their customers could just buy
5250 processing anywhere.

But the 5250 data stream isn't without competition. Those "other
technologies" just happen to not have as good a rate of return on
investment as the 5250 data stream. So IBM just tries to balance between
how much they want to get for their product and what price would drive
away their customers.

In the middle of such a balancing act IBM is certain to lose some
customers who were not interested in paying so much, but they see
additional revenue from the customers they keep who are seeing great
benefit from using their product.

Adam Lang wrote:

>So is the interactive "tax" a way for IBM to get money or a way for IBM to
>push people off the other technology?
>
>I am not starting a flame war.  Just straight out curiosity.
>
>Adam Lang
>
--
Chris Rehm
javadisciple@earthlink.net

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one
that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 John 4:7