Re: No giving up on System i

Hi Trevor,

Responses in line...

Trevor Perry wrote:

Peter,

This is a fantastic find. I cannot see the i5 or System i5 names anywhere on
the latest IBM System i web site. Has IBM been sneaky and changed the name
again?? In the last 6 months, I have been working on software, and had
little to do with hardware configurations, etc. So, this ~change~ has snuck
by me. I am investigating, and will return with any information I can
gather.

It's funny, I started out just wanting to say something about the subject after running into the System i Network registration page, but when I started looking for stuff to support what I wanted to say, I decided to just start looking for it as if I were a new customer. And to me that meant go to www.ibm.com and look for their products. And since I only looked at it today, I can't say that it's changed -- it may have been that way for the last 6 months or more.

For me, I found it easy to break it down to System i as the brand, and
System i5, iSeries and AS/400 as the servers in that family. This was how it
was when System i was first announced, and it was the most logical way to
view it. If this is not the case any more, then of course, we have just been
confused by the mothership one more time.

And your way makes sense to me too -- it means I have a System i AS400 model 170 (at least that's how I see it), an older machine that's part of the System i brand or family. If IBM and the vendors could just get it straight on their websites and in their talking points, we'd be home free.

As for System i Network, they probably have not updated their questionnaire.
With lots of the press and vendors being confused by the name/brand/server
with which to reference our platform, this is what happens.

Actually, I could've sworn it said AS400 all the way down that list when I was actually registering. Then I sent off the email to their webmaster, and decided to send one to midrange.com. At that point, when I went back to look it had i5 and iSeries, so it could be just faulty grey cells.

And yes, this is another reason why we should focus more on the i5/OS name.
Since early this year, I noticed that subtle switch by IBMers. It feels less
confusing, and the only whine about it is the '5' in the name.

And yes, IBM does control the websites, manuals, OS, etc. A couple of weeks
ago, I sent two images to Mark Shearer of i5/OS where it says 400 and
iSeries. I cannot say he was already aware of this i5/OS issue, but he knows
now.

You know, such a great operating system should really have a better name...

*Peter Dow* /
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050
pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> /