RE: Marketing question about AS/400 name

Do you need to communicate to someone who is not listening or keeping

up?

Marketing is for awareness, not education...

I was determined not to participate in another name debate, but Trevor
(and I say this in the nicest way possible because I like you), on this
point you couldn't be more wrong.

Yes, IBM screwed this name thing up royally - and the group that is most
adversely affected is ISV's - we now have to change all of our marketing
collateral to reflect all of the existing names, and no, no effing way,
can we afford to drop the "AS/400" moniker because there are lots of
people who have a need for ISV software for there System i's, yet still
refer to their System's as "AS/400's". No ISV I know of is willing (or
able) to ignore a prospect because the prospect doesn't know the current
"correct" name for the freaking box.

We (ISV's) _need_ to talk to people who still think of the box as
"AS/400" because they need our (ISV's collectively) software. If we
ignore this demographic, we could miss a huge chunk of our potential
market.

My advice to the original poster is to prominently use the name AS/400
on your website. There will be lots of people who will google on that
name, and you want them to find you.



jte


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-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:midrange-l-
bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Trevor Perry
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 11:33 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Marketing question about AS/400 name


There are two parts to this issue.
One - what is it called now, and how do I reach people who are being
reached
by current IBM 'marketing'?
- In this case, I think you use "i5/OS". "System i" can be used, but

it

appears that hardware is going to matter less in the future.
Two - what was it called, and how do I reach the people who still

think it

is called that?
- In this case, you reference the heritage of the hardware and the
software,
so you cover all google attempts.

Of course, there is another part to this issue. Just read any System i
forum, and there has been gazillions of mentions of the new names.

Yet,

the
steadfast remain committed to AS/400 or iSeries. Are these people not
listening or keeping up? What marketing effort will work for them? If

you

try to change something, and someone has an opinion "I ain't changing,

you

can't make me", should you change your marketing effort for these
stalwarts,
or should you market to people who are open to change and willing to
listen?
I say the latter!



On 10/4/07 2:20 PM, "Booth Martin" <booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But how does one communicate to the casual user that doesn't "keep

up"?

This isn't like General Motors coming up with a new model Chevrolet,

its

like GM changing the Chevrolet name plate every couple of years. A
Chevrolet dealership is a Chevrolet dealership, and has been for 80
years. Its not advertised as the General Motors dealership because

it

isn't. Its a Chevrolet dealership. Want a Corvette? Thats where

ya

go, and everyone knows it.

So how do we keep that same continuity in our sales and marketing?

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