Re: The Future of the AS/400 (was Re: Developer Lease to 1.75%????)

On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Dare wrote:

> That is very interesting and it also depend on your view and how you
> translate that announcements.  I for one say it maybe a way to close out the
> AS/400 iSeries because you have more AIX out there than you have AS/400, so
> IBM may be saying to AS/400 shops to consolidate to AIX with easy roadmap on
> the new so call "Convergent Technology".  My conclusion stems from the fact
> that IBM never show any commitment as far as marketing the AS/400 system and
> never made it easy for developers to expand the platform to outside world.
> AIX will make more money for IBM than AS/400, in their opinion, because
> AS/400 is too reliable, available, and dependable while AIX will fetch more
> supports and technician revenue.

Is AIX really less dependable?  Does AIX really generate more service
calls?  I doubt it.

Everyone says that marketing people don't really have a clue.  So why so
much complaining about the lack of visible marketing?  IBM doesn't market
AIX either, they just refer to UNIX.  Even Microsoft's main focus in
marketing is not specific products, but some vague 1 degree of separation.
IBM does mention linux specifically, but linux didn't get anywhere based
on marketing.  Marketing is connecting with people.  Show them something
they know and associate it with what you are trying to sell.  IBM is
trying to sell "solutions", not AIX, not linux, not OS/400.  People have
heard of linux and UNIX, so they show that.  People have also seen
baskteball games, so they show that.  People have never seen an iSeries,
so it would be stupid to show that.  But that doesn't mean that the
iSeries is not being marketed.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com