Re: IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl

To add to your comments Larry:  There is several kinds of advertising.  TV
is only one kind.  

Using TV advertising for the iSeries would be a horrid waste of money.   For
the same money you could fly every person that could conceivably be
interested in buying an iSeries in to Rochester for a personal tour and
sales pitch.  

Whats that you say?  You say they already do that? Well how about that.

 
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Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
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-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: 02/01/04 23:16:52
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: IBM Linux Ad during Super Bowl
 
Don wrote:
 
>....and how many times have we begged for a OS/400 centric ad just to
>showup somewhere....even at 3 a.m. on the independent stations in West
>Pigs Knuckle?
>
>Anyone hear the fat lady yet?
>
>
OK  Maybe I've been brainwashed by Malcome Haines and Dr. Frank and John
Reed, and others but.....  My company doesn't buy television advertising
in our local market because the price of it is beyond the reach of our
finances.  If it was within our finances we wouldn't do it anyway. Why?
Because the average person watching television isn't the person
responsible for purchasing an iSeries.  Pick any number you have heard,
Recently I heard there are 750,000 iSeries and AS/400 CPUs out there.
Right or wrong that's a teeny tiny fraction of those watching any TV
show, Super Bowl included.  How dows Dodge, or GM, or Ford or even
Pepsi/Coke or Budweiser/Millerdo it? VOLUMN baby. I didn't look up how
may $40,000 vehicles the big three sell in a year but you can bet they
EACH sell more units per year than IBM has sold AS/400 and iSeries
EVER.It doesn't take a huge add on per unit to pay for their campaigns
and oh by the way, nearly every single person who watched the superbowl
owns or rides in a car, truck or SUV.   I spoke recently to the
presedent of one of my customer oompanies. (A president who was most
recently their director of sales) They sell products that you all have
seen, especially if you've used a) A S/36, b) A S/38 as well as lots of
other items more current than that. I asiked him why as a sucessfull
market leading global company they didn't advertise on TV, or in Wall
Street, or on Radio. Why? Because it doesn't cost effectively hit their
target audience!  So go on wishing for a gigantic national or even world
wide ad campaign for iSeries but then expect the price of your next
iSeries to reflect the costs of that campaign.
 
So while I believe in the iSeries as much as anyone and would enjoy
seeing national advertisement, I'm not holding my breath for them, nor
declaring the iSeries dead because I don't see them.
 
 - Larry
 
 
--
Larry Bolhuis                   IBM eServer Certified Systems Expert:
Vice President                    iSeries Technical Solutions V5R2
Arbor Solutions, Inc.             iSeries LPAR Technical Solutions V5R2
1345 Monroe NW Suite 259          iSeries Linux Technical Solutions V5R2
Grand Rapids, MI 49505            iSeries Windows Integration Technical
Solutions V5R2
                                IBM eServer Certified Systems Specialist
(616) 451-2500                    iSeries System Administrator for
OS/400 V5R2
(616) 451-2571 - Fax              AS/400 RPG IV Developer
(616) 260-4746 - Cell             iSeries System Command Operations V5R2