Re: System i - Mentioned twice in SD Times

If Chevrolet can be a brand name for 75 years than so can't AS/400. People understand that Malibu, Corvair, and Caprice are name plates, but Chevrolet is what they are buying.

I am soooo tired of spending my energy trying to figure out how to reach my potential clients without sounding either old fashioned or so edgy as to sound pretentious and confused.

You tell me, Trevor, what do I put on my brochure? I want to reach the owners, users, and IT directors of the IBM midrange platform, including those whose iron may be pre-2005, or even pre-2000.




Trevor Perry wrote:

Don,

On 2/21/08 7:59 PM, "Don" <dr2@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Trevor wrote:

What amazes alot of us,

Of whom are you speaking of when you say "us"? Is that a royal "we"? Or,
just the people who think the platform is still an "AS/400"?

is the need to befuddle the industry by changing the
names every 2 or so years for whatever wild hair whim that comes out of.....
:)

We have played this name game over and over and over.
Server:
1988 AS/400
2000 iSeries
2006 System i

OS:
1988 OS/400
2006 i5/OS

Your "every 2 or so years" is just an excuse, and not valid.

ANYONE with a solid and successful history of a product that's been in the
marketplace for the intermediate to long term, will tell you, without fail,
that stable product recognition is one of THE key elements to the success of
a product. IBM has insisted on shooting this product in the foot via their
naming wild hairs... What if Ford changed the name of the Mustang every
couple years...maybe this year it should be called 'The Wildebeastie' Or
maybe the Crown Victoria should become the Fergie?...think people would be
as loyal? Perhaps Aunt Jemima should now be Cousin Jen? Log Cabin syrup
should be Old Joe's brown sugar sauce.... Want a long list of similar
examples? Maybe Oracle should chance its database product's name to, oh,
maybe, Delphi?

One of the things we have to cope is the stigma of "old" with the name
"AS/400". One of the other things to cope with is that IBM ~did~ change the
name. Complaining about it does not bring the old name back. We have a
better chance of getting AS/400 people to join a System i community than
getting IBM to change the name. Continued whining about the name change does
nothing but add more negativity to the world. Especially when it is not even
decent math.

I submit, there are basically 5 big reasons why this product line doesn't
have the marketplace acceptance that it's peers from MS, Sun, Red Hat...etc
do: 1 - Name changes too frequent. 2-Condemning the end user to the
channel. 3-Lack of historical patrol of the channel and
BP's/MAP's/VAR's/etc. 4-Lack of presence in the education realm. 5-Lack of
serious marketing presence.

Combined, these 5 items are making the existence and promotion of this
system very challenging.

This is simple speculation - a feature of the negative and noisy pundits.
Number 1 is crap. Number 2 is not about "condemning" (another majorly
negative word), but more about the level of support for the channel - which
is number 3. Number 4 is the fault of the community as well as IBM - and
that means YOU. Number 5 is the true reason - period. Marketing is
everything. We have the BEST business OS and hardware combination on the
planet, yet it is a little known fact. i5/OS customers run lower costs of
ownership, yet we lose sales based on a higher cost of acquisition - due to
lack of understanding (read, marketing).

And we all wish it weren't so...trust me...

You wish it were so - it gives you something to complain about. What ever
would you do if you lived in a perfect world????

Viva i-Power...or whatever.... :)

You simply need to stop spreading negativity. It does NOTHING to help. And
EVERYTHING to lose our platform.


What seems interesting to me is that the article that started this thread is
mostly at odds with all your words.

Happy Birthday, IBM¹s System i

They know what it is called. And they spelled it right. How come THEY can,
how come you don't?

IBM¹s System i is a platform that one can¹t help but love,

Even with ALL the name changes? Wow!!!! THEY love it, how come YOU don't?

It¹s hard to believe that System i is 20 years old,
if one goes back to the launch of the AS/400.

So, they know that AS/400 is part of the System i family! How come YOU
don't?

the oftrenamed System/38-AS/400-iSeries-System i midrange servers

They include S/38 in the family. Nice! But the word "oft", even with 4 names
in 29 years does not match your "every 2 years or so". They got math, how
come YOU don't?

So here¹s to you, IBM Midrange System, whatever you¹re branded
as this year.

Ahhhh.. Now they have decided to play your game. But they say....

You may not be the sexiest platform in today¹s fast-moving
world, but sometimes sex doesn¹t sell‹reliability does.

Fast moving worlds require adaptation. The server we use today is
significantly different than the server we used 20 years ago. Intel has
different names for their chips - but you don't use the Mustang naming rules
against them. Besides, selling cars is not a "fast moving world", otherwise
we would have 100MPG.


This is about two things.
1. The AS/400 name is gone as a platform. It is a server belonging to the
System i platform.
(If they bring the name back, then you get to use it, and of course, throw
it in my face. I may be hard to find, though, if IBM were to show their
support to the platform by doing such a thing.)

2. You complain complain complain about the renaming, and "every 2 years or
so" is just wrong - shall I send you a calculator? Spitting venom about IBM
is not a positive thing and does not help the future of the platform.

Trevor