Re: Discontinuance of support for the *M36

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

Al,

At 5/4/00 09:52 AM -0400, you wrote:
> > 1)  The costs
> > to IBM for supporting this feature must be relatively low, since it's
> > considered to be stable.
>
> This probably costs more than you think, because many of these customers
> lack the necessary AS/400 skills, so they need an excessive amount of
> customer support.

 The /36 customer is paying for support, just like any other
customer.  Since the /36 has been out of "new circulation"
for quite a few years now, most will be veterans.  I don't think
they need that much support.


> > 2)  The
> > "experiment" to push S/36 customers over to the AS/400, when
> > the AS/400 first came out, failed miserably.  Why would IBM want to
> > go through that embarrassment again?
>
> The S/36 customer represents small potatoes to IBM, and if it doesn't
> generate profit, they don't care about it.

 Small customers can become large customers.  It's not a good
idea to alienate them.

 -mark