Re: IBM Spin Doctors on AS/400 Marketing

[mcrump@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

>Dean, I asked a question back at the beginning of this thread that I
>didn't get an answer to. Not from you or anyone on this list. Have any of
>you ever bought a midrange system or seen a system bought because someone
>read an ad and said, "Hey, I like this HP/9000, let's go buy one!"?
Maybe this is why I am so testy over this discussion.

We did.  (I hate using we because I really had nothing to do with the
decision
but my company did).

About three years ago we were in this really big discussion about C/S.  Our
AS/400 applications (being mostly migrated from a lameframe) were not
the most exciting in the world and C/S was the buzzword.  A gentleman,
who still works here (beyond my wildest nightmares), brought in an HP ad
that
essentially stated that Unix was the C/S server platform of choice.

I think I still have the ad but I will have to see if I can find it.  It
was a piece of
work - C/S is the only way to do apps, Open systems are the only way to
do servers, Unix has the most apps, etc.  From there,  we embarked on the
premise that HP-UX on HP9000 were the way to move towards a C/S
environment.  HP was brought in along with several application firms and
away we went.

Intermediate result - we bought 3 HP9000 and wasted a ton of money.
End result - two of the systems have been sold and the third will be gone
by the end of this year (the only decent use was for an internal DNS
machine).

I truly hope we are more of an exception but I don't know.

One interesting point.  While the HP 'project' was floundering the same
exec brought in a copy of the ad on the HP Assault to help bolster
some support for his failing idea.   I just happened to have a copy of the
IBM response.......it did help.

Now, this does not prove me right in all the other responses on this
subject but hopefully sheds a little light.






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