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During the recent Common Conference in Minneapolis, I attended the LUG luncheon, where, again, I was asked for input on how IBM can better sell iSeries. The following is my offline response to the IBM representative who attended the meeting and was soliciting input from user group representatives. This was on the heels one of our local iSeries shops abandoning the 400 for Unix, which meant the loss of our President and Vice President of our local user group. ------------------------------------------------ Dear IBM Rep.... During the Lug Luncheon in Minneapolis, you were soliciting for ideas on how IBM can better market the iSeries. Forgive me if comments in this email this sound a bit blunt, or rambling, but rest assured I understand you are only one person at IBM, and my comments are not directed towards you but towards the people responsible for marketing (and the lack of it). First off, at each LUG Luncheon I've attended over the last three years, you repeat the request for ideas of how to market this system. If IBM doesn't believe in the system (evidenced by the lack of marketing) how can you expect your customers to believe in it? That is why customers abandon the platform. If IBM won't "sell" it, why then would anyone want to buy it? I'd like to re-iterate the point I made at the luncheon, that in New Orleans last spring Buell Duncan said that we could expect to see a major marketing campaign for iSeries. As I said at the luncheon, I saw one ad in Computerworld, and nothing else. In this light IBM's marketing efforts haven't changed at all and as I'm sure you've heard at Common in the past, the slogan, "It's The Marketing". Hopefully you can start a 'squeaky-wheel' syndrome. Another point I'd like to submit regarding IBM's marketing strategy, those 'blue bar' TV commercials to me are blatantly arrogant. To me they make your customers look like a bunch of idiots. It seems that the marketing strategy is to show a group of corporate people gathered together who point fingers and/or don't have a clue about what their needs are. And then IBM tells us "We Are So Ready for IBM". Why would we want IBM, if we don't know what we want? Using that logic tells your customers to blindly follow IBM's lead - why should I be that loyal when IBM isn't even loyal to iSeries? I feel this sounds like a vague description, but please, IBM needs to focus on reality and not that 'vision thing'. I know IBM can solve problems, but you need to sell the steak and not the sizzle. Codernauts? Please - those are cheesier than Velveeta..... I don't understand for the life of me how a company with so much talent can use sitcom mentality when so much is at stake. Now the commercial I'd like to see, in 30 seconds, would be one where the situation revolves around a system administrator going to the CFO (of a multinational Fortune 100) on Monday morning to explain that a hard drive crashed on the server over the weekend. The CFO looks terrified and asks how long it will take to get the system back up, and whether any data was lost. The system administrator says "Relax, we're already up." The CFO says "How can that be?" The system administrator replies "We use iSeries, and the drives were mirrored, and the system called and reported the problem to IBM and they were here to replace the drive on Saturday. IBM replaced the drive and we didn't even need to re-boot." Then during the fade, a voice says, for more info on the only system that has never had a virus, has never been hacked, has the scalability of a supercomputer (starting at around $10K), can do web serving, supports java, support Notes, Domino & Linux, runs NT natively, supports real programming languages like SQL, Cobol, RPG, C and has the best database bar none, along with the lowest Overall Total Cost of Ownership,AND a bunch of users more loyal than Apple users, that can be backed up with one command to one tape... call 1-800-IBM-SERV (or whatever the number of the day is). Also, it wouldn't hurt to mention that 90+%? of Fortune 500 companies use iSeries. Finally, on a personal note, last Christmas I was laid off as a consultant for a local IBM business partner. It took me three months to find a position (for which I was overqualified and underpaid) on the iSeries platform. This was clearly the result of a shrinking iSeries market. Fortunately, I've since found a better position, but have heard again of another local iSeries shop laying off staff this coming Friday. What all of the corporate decision makers hear is what they hear on the golf course (and they discuss what the ad's say during the Sunday morning news and weekend sports shows - especially the golf tournaments - they all watch golf - hint - hint - this is where the above commercial should be aired, not just once but ad nauseum). They don't know what an iSeries is and only know that the AS/400 is old technology - why? Because it's not marketed - and without marketing there is no visibility. After all, if it was new technology, IBM would surely market it. (That's what those who don't know anything about iSeries or computers in general tend to think.) That is why the iSeries market is shrinking. If IBM won't start marketing specific platforms to the public in general to get the word out that the iSeries does web serving, does support java, does support NT, does GUI and Visual Basic, and can be backed up with one command to one tape, there will be no future for iSeries. It's really that simple, advertising sells, and if you don't believe that just look at what it's done for Microsoft. Their (MS) products are junk compared to iSeries. But if IBM can't see that, it proves my point. If IBM won't even sell its best product then you need to stop asking the user group for ideas on how to market the product. You can tell your boss I said so." Regards, Jerry Kern IBM Certified AS/400 RPG Developer, 15+ year veteran of the industry, Past President & Current Director of NWOMUG. gkern@buckeye-express.com
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