RE: Marketing the platform was: System i - Mentioned twice in

Forgive me for putting words into Trevor's mouth (as if that were
actually possible) but I think that his larger point is:

"All publicity is good publicity... except your own obituary."

Regards,

Scott Ingvaldson
Senior IBM Support Specialist
Fiserv Midwest


-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Pluta [mailto:joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 9:33 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Marketing the platform was: System i - Mentioned twice in

Anne Lucas wrote:

It is sad, Trevor, that some of those who consider themselves the
biggest cheerleaders of the AS/400 cannot/will not change with the
times.

Can we please try to keep the personal characterizations and attacks
down to a minimum? A large part of the heat in this subject is not the
facts, but the butt-ugly attitudes of the presenters. It's worse than
watching Clinton and Obama go at it.

I don't think anybody here wants to use old names, and in fact most of
at least say iSeries and many use System i. The biggest complainer is
Don, and I don't think he so much refuses to use new names as is pissed
off that he has to. The facts are that the terms have changed far more
often in the last year than ever ni the history of the box. The number
one evangelist for the name change, Mr. Perry, has the following
chronology:

In June he was calling us names for not using "i5". This term has since
been deprecated.

In October he was calling us names for not using "System i". This term
has since been deprecated.

And now, he is calling us names for not using "i5/OS".

While I have no idea what the next name will be, I'm sure we'll be told
we're change-hating Neanderthals for not hopping on that particular
bandwagon.

The attitude (with the dripping sarcasm) is what sucks. Even though the
nom du jour has changed three times in the last 12 months, the
implication is instead that we're dunderheaded morons for not marching
lemming-like over the cliff every time IBM comes up with a new name, or
drops an old one, or changes direction.

We're not stupid, we're not Luddites, we're not IBM-bashers. And I
resent the hell out of being told that I'm not helping the platform,
just because I refuse to jump on the quarterly name-change bandwagon.
You want to help the platform? Shut up about the name and get IBM to
market the thing. It doesn't matter what I call it if it ain't in WSJ
on a regular basis.

There. Now ya made me use up my March rant.

Joe