Re: IBM Spin Doctors on AS/400 Marketing

["Chris Rehm" <Mr.AS400@xxxxxxx>]

>Some days I get so dense.  What applications?  After you do spreadsheets,
>word-processing, and a graphics package...  maybe Quicken and Quickbooks
>too... What applications are next?  
>
>Isn't that what programmers do now?  Is the suggestion being made that
>with NT all of us are no longer needed?  A call to MS will bring a CD-ROM
>by overnight mail, will cost $495.00, will install by itself, and will be
>the perfect solution to our programming problem?  Need Funeral Home
>software?  Need Airlines Reservations?  Inventory control? Manufacturing
>planning will be another CD-ROM?  One call solves all. The whole thing
>strikes me as having been through the looking glass.

Not exactly sure what you mean, but about "what applications":

NT gets a lot of trade press because third party firms are developing apps
to give enhanced technical function. Network management software, heck
there sure was a TON of press (and still is) regarding clustering
software. Web development software, application development software, data
bases, etc. These are all technical enhancements and thus make the trades.
So, when Bob's Funeral Home gets into the market for software, they ask
someone they know who is involved in the computer industry. That is
someone who reads the trades and they have seen NT mentioned a thousand or
so times and that person probably starts the search looking for an NT
product. 

Of course, you also see many ads for products which run under NT. 

I guess this is where the confusion lies. Giving the false impression that
Microsoft has spent some fortune marketing NT. Then, the demands that IBM
do the same for the AS/400. 




Chris Rehm
Mr.AS400@ibm.net
You have to ask yourself, "How often can I afford to be unexpectedly out of 
business?" 
Get an AS/400.
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