Re: IBM Advertising

Don, if IBM is managing the decline, at same time they are spending
millions in the Business Partner program to get BPs and ISVs to market
their apps on iSeries. When IBM disbanded its sales force, they went
to the model of BPs as the "face" in front of customers. From what I've
read,
there are many new partners bringing apps to the iSeries. I know what we
are wanting is for IBM to make the market "aware" of  the iSeries, and to
promote it agressively. I think it will take both partners with great
solutions & IBM.
jim

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don" <dr2@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2005 11:04 AM
Subject: Re: IBM Advertising


>
>
> No,
>
> I think IBM's doing exactly what they wanted to do.  It's sometimes
> refered to a 'managing the decline of a product line' so as to minimize
> the negative impact to cash flow and profits.
>
> Just look at what's happening in the marketplace, the market trends and
> product perception.  I think the impact on this product line is ,
> UNFORTUNATELY, EXACTLY what IBM intends for it to be...and it may even be
> ahead of the curve in terms of things happening faster than IBM wanted
> them to.  Yeah, it sucks, but it's what IBM wants.
>
> You need to be careful about all that "we're shipping/selling NEW
> systems..." marketing crap.  You can't base decisions on the dollar
> amounts of sales only.  You need to ask how many UNITS are being
> sold and are in the field and how many NEW clients and applications
> are being developed.  "New" systems are basically upgrades and
> replacements...good luck finding someone that's totally new to
> iSeries.  Yes, they do exist, but so do albino tigers...and it's probably
> easier to find an albino tiger.  Now, keep in mind that I'm talking
> primarily about N.American and W.Europe marketspace.  In N.Am, we're not
> seeing anything but market decline.
>
> Frankly, you don't get the MUCH LOST and MUCH NEEDED market impact in
> terms of depth, penetration and acceptance with just a few ads.  You have
> to do ALOT more.  We've all had this conversation many times.  I'm not
> doing it again.  Nothing will happen.
>
> It's time to wakeup and smell the coffee that we in the user group
> management arena have been seeing for a long time now.
>
> ...and don't give me this 'you can run linux on iSeries, so go buy a (VERY
> EXPENSIVE) iSeries just to run linux....' :)  It was very intersting that
> when Red Hat did thier Summit tech conference they intentionally excluded
> PowerPC technologies from their presentations...it was a total Intel based
> RH Linux conference for all practical purposes...even IBM was pushing
> Intel server techno.
>
> Maybe we'll get lucky and IBM will sell off iSeries to the Chinese...or
> better yet Dell.
>
> It's still one of the best servers out there and we all know it!
>
> Don in DC
>
> SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE CLUE > 0;
>
> ***  NO ROWS RETURNED  ***
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2005, GKern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
> > Seems I remember in iSeries edition of eServer magazine back around
> > April/May, there was an article by Ryan Rhodes titled 'You Ain't Seen
> > Nothing Yet' regarding the iSeries advertising campaign. This was just
> > after the few ad's that appeared in WSJ & during a few episodes of Lost.
> > He claimed that more advertising was yet to come.
> >
> > So after I read the article I emailed him and asked him the question -
> > what happened to the advertising? (I never did get a reponse from him.)
> >
> > My response to their advertising claims is:
> >
> > "Yes Mr. Rhodes (& IBM) - I haven't seen anything yet."
> >
> > And I'm still waiting....
> >
> > So this month I get the latest edition of iSeries eServer magazine with
> > this slick/fancy poster of the "why i" campaign. Again we see IBM
wasting
> > their ad dollars preaching to the choir...
> >
> > Regards, Jerry
> >
> > Gerald Kern
> > IBM Certified AS/400 RPG IV Developer & RPG IV Programmer
> > MIS Project Leader, Lotus Notes/Domino Administrator
> > The Toledo Clinic, Inc.
> > 4235 Secor Road
> > Toledo, OH 43623-4299
> > Phone 419-479-5535
> > gkern@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > *****
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