Trevor,
There was an opportunity when the name was changed from AS/400 to
iSeries that they could've created the perception that it was a whole
new generation of system. I don't think they were successful in that.
I suppose they had the same opportunity when they changed the name to
System i -- but it was less likely to have that impact, because people
had already been through it with iSeries, and had already determined
that it was just a name change, not a change of technology.
At this point, people are so confused, they don't know what to think.
When they go to a customer, and have a conversation:
Vendor: "we have this great application, and one of the things that puts
it ahead of the competition is that it runs on the IBM i"
Prospect: "IBM i? I'm not familiar with that. What kind of computer is
that?"
Vendor: "Err, sorry, I should've said that it runs on the IBM i
operating system on a POWER system"
Prospect: You lost me.
Vendor: "IBM i is an operating system, similar to Windows, except it
doesn't run on a PC, it runs on an IBM Power System"
Prospect: "I've never heard of that. Are there many of them used?"
Vendor: "You may have heard of the name AS/400?"
Prospect: "ahhh... so it runs on an AS/400?"
Vendor: "Well, not really, the IBM i operating system is the newest
generation. The old generations were known as i5/OS, and the older
generations were OS/400 and they ran on AS/400"
Prospect: "This is very complicated. Can't it just run on a regular
computer?"
Vendor: "Well, the IBM i computer... err... I mean, environment... is
really stable, immune to viruses, has an integrated database that makes
it cost less to run and support with a higher up-time"
Prospect: "Well, I have an AS/400 and Windows. But I don't really want
to buy a new PowerSystem just to run your software".
Vendor: "Oh, well... actually our software can also run on System i and
iSeries".
Prospect: "Will it run on my AS/400?"
Vendor: "Most likely you have a newer system, like an iSeries or System
i. IBM hasn't made the AS/400 in 8 years. So yes, our system will run
on that."
Prospect: "Then why didn't you say it runs on iSeries to begin with?"
You don't want your prospective customer to be frustrated with just
trying to understand what platform your apps run on! Plus, this assumes
you're having an interactive discussion with your customer. How do you
write ads?
Imagine the tag line: "Acme ERP! The best ERP. You can count on it
always working, because it runs on the IBM i operating system on a Power
System".
"Oh yeah, it'll also run on System i -- if you already have that you
don't have to buy a PowerSystem"
"If you don't know what System i is, it's a newer generation of the
iSeries, or AS/400"
Suddenly, instead of a tag line, you have a tag paragraph.
Bah, you're making me do exactly what I didn't want to do. You're
making me sit here and put the system down. Now I'm just as bad as
these other people.
We need to forget about the name of the system. The name is a problem,
it causes a lot of confusion, and does NOTHING to make people perceive
of the system as modern. Perceiving of it as modern comes from using
it, or at least seeing it, and seeing the modern stuff. Not from the name.
We need to SHOW them that it's modern. We need to produce applications
that work better in the i environment because of it's superiority.
Simply showing them that it can be a web server, or that it can run open
source apps that exist on other platforms doesn't show off the
superiority of the system.
For me, the reason I use this computer system is RPG and DB2. These are
the things that make it better than other platforms. But, I'm a
programmer.
For non-programmers (who are the vast, vast majority out there) the
advantage of a system comes from it's applications. Are there apps out
there that are better on IBM i than they are on Windows, Mac or Linux?
If so, I've never once had a vendor tell me that. I've had lots of
vendors tell me the opposite. I've had lots of vendors market their
apps at users in my organization, suggesting how nice it would be to get
off of the old AS/400 environment. Indeed, every single software
project I've done has had at least one vendor who made that pitch to
some of the users who were on the committee. Never once has a vendor
shown the users the advantage of IBM i instead of Windows -- the burden
to prove that has always been on me, despite that I'm not the one
selling it.
We need to be the advocates. We need to be the folks out there showing
the advantages of:
a) Having a business-oriented programming language, with proper decimal
arithmetic and deeply integrated database logic. (Not useful for end
consumers, but useful when marketing to programmers)
b) Having an integrated database. What are the advantages of deep
integration? Why does that make applications better to the end user.
(Tell the users, not me!)
c) The technology independence of hardware vs software.
d) The design of the single-level store. How does that help the end users?
e) The design of the system so that it's virtually virus-proof.
All of these things need to be translated into actual examples of where
they save businesses time and money and solve problems and presented to
the user as part of a vendor selling their application. Their
application is better because of these things, right? Tell the end-user!
Trevor Perry wrote:
Scott,
The bulk of the community does consider them new names for the same thing.
And, there is the rub... If ~we~ continue to propagate that perception, in
an industry where change is rapid and desired, then ~we~ continue to fade
into the past.
midrange.com
