Re: AS/400 Brand Name

Hank,

At 1:08 AM -0400 8/19/99, HankHeath@aol.com wrote:
>Al exaggerates only slightly  to make a point. However, the AS/400 as a brand
>is losing clout - no doubt. However, the move may be to strengthen IBM as a
>brand, instead. To those who worship the AS/400 religion (I was one once),
>this is painful. However, the brand has run its course.

    The only reason that the AS/400 brand has run its course is 
because IBM has let it.  Brands don't wear out as they get used, they 
get stronger - think Kleenex, Coke, etc.

    Yesterday, I was talking with a customer about the AS/400 vs. NT, 
and I mentioned to him that in the 12 years I've been using OS/400, 
it has never crashed on me.  Yes, jobs abort and sometimes things 
don't work right, but even though we develop software on our machines 
they have never died*.  THIS is what the AS/400 brand should mean and 
how it should be marketed, period.  In today's server world the top 3 
things should be 1.reliability, 2.reliability, and 3.reliability. 
Look at all the well-publicized failures over at eBay and eTrade.

(* OK, so we IPL daily and maybe that keeps us out of trouble)

>It's time for IBM to
>consolidate and take on the competition. Do Win-tel, Sun, HP rely upon brands
>within their major category?

    Actually, a good number of them do.  Half of the word "Wintel" is 
Windows, which is Microsoft's brand.  Intel uses Pentium, since 486 
wasn't a strong enough brand name for them.  Who on the street knows 
what Sun does except for Java?  To throw a few more out, Apple 
Macintosh - we use Macs, not Apples, although the name Apple is also 
a strong brand.  Motorola - PowerPC.  IBM has Aptiva for home PCs. 
Iomega - Zip and Jaz.  I do concede that for most PC makers (HP, 
Compaq, Acer, etc.) the brand names are negligible.

    I would love to have 1/10 of IBM's marketing budget and a product 
that fills a market need as perfectly as the AS/400 does!  I can't 
imagine a better situation from a marketing view...

    Regards,

    - Lou Forlini
      Software Engineer
      System Support Products, Inc.






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