Re: IBM Spin Doctors on AS/400 Marketing

Chris,

In a message dated 97-11-04 11:47:30 EST, you write:

> >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.

<This was NOT Chris>  I've been hearing that both midrange systems and their
associated programmers have been "going away" since 1979.  First it was the
"new" mainframes, followed by microcomputers, followed by CASE that was each
supposed to do us in.

>  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. 

Aha!  Chris and I come together on this subject for the first time!

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

My point, exactly.

>  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. 

Oh, duhhh, I think I finally see what you've been trying to say regarding
AS/400 advertising.  By being inherently inferior, NT gets more press because
people are clamoring for something, anything, (that should have been there in
the first place) to make it work better.  The AS/400 platform is less
targeted for a specific purpose and more reliable, ergo it receives less
press (the press _DO_ love problems with major vendors, and I'd be willing to
bet that the /400 got more press over the initial release of V3R1 than it has
over anything else regarding the platform).

OK, but the premise falls apart when you try to understand why so many
companies purchased NT in the first place.  How did so many of them find out
about a product that was not even released yet?

Regards,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"So a man said to God, 'What's a million years to you?'  God replied 'It's a
second.'  So the man asked of God, 'What's a million dollars to you?'  God
replied, 'A penny'.  So the man said to God 'Will you give me a penny?'  God
said 'Yes I will -- in a second.' " -- Unknown
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