RE: April 16: an IBM webcast on POWER

["Jones, John (US)" <John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxx>]

True, that is funny.

But if Mr. iSeries has no issue with spreading their contact info far
and wide, that's fine with me.  Personally, I don't want sales folks
bothering me about products that I don't want, don't need, or am
unwilling to invest in.  When a need for a package arises, I and others
in my firm are readily capable of talking to other midrange sites,
posting to this list, talking to our VAR, and using a search engine to
find potential vendors.

Vendor calls have gotten so bad that I can no longer answer the phone at
my desk unless I recognize the caller's number.  Some of the repeat
callers never leave a message and others do leave messages and call back
with some regularity even though I've never actually spoken to them.  I
do not have the time to take the 6-8 vendor calls I get every day.

For existing ASystemiSeries/400 customers, IBM does not need your
contact info.  They already have it.

For potential new customers, how are they going to feel when (for
example) Penton sells their info to a bunch of other vendors?  Think
that'll entice them to the platform?


And 'jde', I work for a service provider so there are no products for
sale.  We are the quality leader in many of the areas we choose to
compete in so actually, some business does come to us simply based on
our reputation.  We market in a number of ways but it is mostly done via
spreading awareness of our brand and offerings and not through
harvesting data & cold-calling.