RE: Sales Pitches -- MIDRANGE-L

Hi Phil -

>Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 16:17:58 -0500
>From: pike4@ix.netcom.com
>Subject: Re: RE: Sales Pitches
 ...
>There's out and out sales hawking going on, you know, call me, 
>we have the perfect product for you... 

I've not seen that except in response to someone expressing a need/problem
which the product in question would address.  There have been occasional
problems in the past with unsolicited commercial postings, but David dealt
with the problems and they stopped.  And when a vendor response is posted,
it is always soft sell ... "We have this product which can do what you can.
Visit our website at xxxxxxx or send me an email or call me for more info."

>Are you trying to tell me that there's no other forum or list for AS/400
product info?

I'm not saying that.  There are two factors: 
  1. the person may not be asking for a vendor solution because they may not
even realize that one exists.  They may be asking for help in writing a set
of programs to accomplish some task, and then be told that software has
already been written which will do that.  In some cases the software is FREE
and can be downloaded or could be inexpensive enough that is more cost
effective than the man-hour costs of a programmer doing the research and
writing the programs.
  2. These are David's lists so we play by his rules.

If you want to see a lot of unsolicited vendor postings, go to the
comp.sys.ibm.as400.misc newsgroup.  There is one bozo one there who has been
posting ads about every day for the service he provides.  As a result of a
couple of other companies who ofter the same service, but had been posting
only occasionally, have been posting each time in response.  I don't
normally out and out flame people, but the other day I flamed the first guy.

>I can think of 4 web sites alone. As far as that Job list is concerned 
>it is loaded with headhunters, from accross the country. I wanted to 
>speak directly with MIS Directors, I don;t need a list for headhunters, 

I don't subscribe to the jobs list since I have a very good job.

>there's already alot of web sites, if you noticed the ads in the Super
Bowl. 

Super Bowl?  What's a Super Bowl? <G>  Seriously, I don't watch pro sports
so all I know of the Super Bowl ads is what was mentioned in TV Guide.  I
guess Monster and at least one other jobs website had ads.

>If you look at the JDE list you will see a world of difference.

I don't work in a JDE shop (and hope I never do) so I don't know subscribe
to the list and don't know what it looks like; but I would expect less
vendor postings because
  1. if it's a JDE list, then people on the list shouldn't be asking for
recommendations of competing application software, nor should they be asking
for recommendations of unrelated application software.
  2. if it's a JDE list, then the people wouldn't generally be asking for
recommendations about utility software unless it relates to JDE to some
extent.
  In both cases, if there are no requests for recommendations, then there
shouldn't be any postings giving recommendations.

Since this list is applicable to ANYTHING that relates to IBM midrange
systems that isn't covered in a more specific Midrange.com list, it's a lot
more wide open.

Ken
Southern Wine and Spirits of Nevada, Inc.
Opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily represent the views of
my employer or anyone else.

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