RE: IBM Marketing (was How does ....)

> From: Jon Paris
>
> This is getting so far off the MI topic that this will be my last
> post but I couldn't let this pass.

My last post, too.


> But I wish a few people would wake up to the
> fact that they
> _did_ get the cost down.  That is how we came to have the server
> models and
> the so-called interactive tax!!  Look at the price performance
> curve on the
> boxes over the years and you'll see.  I personally think they
> went overboard
> in the current pricing structure, but unlike many people here I actually
> recognize that IBM needs to make a profit!

Even though I'm actually in the business of removing the CFINT penalty (one
of my COMMON sessions is "Repealing the Interactive Tax", which title I'm
sure irks you, Jon <grin>), I do recognize the reality of the situation as
well.

For now, at least, the iSeries is sort of like the airline industry
(pre-terrorism, hopefully).  Most of us flew coach for what were really,
really reasonable fares.  But much of that fare was subsidized by those few
rows in the front that held people paying the ridiculous high prices of
first and business class.  Right now, the interactive feature is subsidizing
the low cost of the server box.  At the same time, the interactive feature
SHOULD be moving us as a community towards a client/server architecture.
The fact that we for the most part haven't taken that step is what is
holding back the box.

Eventually (again, hopefully), we'll all move to a client/server paradigm
and start taking advantage of the strengths of the iSeries as a server.
Once the iSeries sheds it green-screen dinosaur image and is recognized as a
true server platform, then odds are it will take its rightful place in the
server world and we won't have to worry about its future.  But until then,
IBM needs to nudge us along the client/server path, and CFINT is one way to
do that.

Which is why IBM is more likely, IMO, to condone my revitalization
architecture than it is to let something like Fast400 slide by.  We'll see.

Joe