Re: Software Vendors (And US too) - A small rant -- MIDRANGE-L

The rebranding is no longer in the equation. IBM have given us the IBM i
branding to match their Power brand, and it will be with us for the long
term.

Either we, as a community, promote the current and future branding, or we
will be left behind in the DP department. And, with all the noise from the
MS crowd (and even Unix people), and some of our own community, we need to
support this incredible platform for the long term, not its glorious past.
The challenge is to stop using arguments that keep us mired in the old
names and stuck in old ways of doing things.

On 12/11/12 10:08 PM, "John Jones" <chianime@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Generally I don't like the rebranding. I believe it dilutes a product's
significance in the marketplace and, in the case of tech products at
least,
decreases mind share among those who aren't intimately familiar with the
products.

That said, I work in IT. Which used to be MIS. Which was IS before that
and Data Processing before that.

So maybe IBM's rebranding efforts are just keeping pace with the rest of
the tech sector.

On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Trevor Perry <trevor@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Robert,

You seem to have fallen prey to some weird sense of time. It has been
(next month), FIVE years since the name change. In I.T., that is an
eternity - and way longer than a week.

And, we have seen charts supporting that through 2025:

http://ibmsystemsmag.blogs.com/you_and_i/2012/12/future-of-ibm-i-caac-buz
z.
html

It's probably time to pack up that old and tired myth and send it to the
AS/400 cave. While your clients use old branding, you don't need to. If
you say "IBM i" like it is the current branding, they will get used to
it.
If not, don't argue, just persist with the correct branding. You can
support the platform, even if they don't care to.

On 12/11/12 9:31 PM, "Robert Munday" <rwmunday@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But with IBM changing the name as often as they have and do, how is an
independent rent-a-programmer like me supposed to keep up? I still

have

clients who call it "the 400". They pay the bills so they are free to
call it anything they desire. I personally use "iSeries". My most
recent client uses the term "iSeries". If I were selling software in

the

example you site, then I would need to know and use the "IBM Name Of

The

Week"... whatever that is this week. I personally don't know.

Robert Munday
Munday Software Consultants
Montgomery, AL

-----Original Message-----

From: DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Dec 11, 2012 6:29 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Software Vendors (And US too) - A small rant

I know of a company including several persons there personally

including

the person who made the mistake. They were asked by a huge potential
customer what their systems ran on. The response: "AS/400". The

customer

immediately and finally closed discussions with: "Yeah well IBM quit
making those over a decade ago so you clearly don't have the ability

to

support our needs with that." Game over. No explanations,

backpedaling,

clarification, could help. The potential customer believed it was a
mindset. What does the company really use? IBM i 7.1 on POWER7.

Oops.

Names matter.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis

On 12/11/2012 5:06 PM, Jim Oberholtzer wrote:

Note to software vendors: If you want me to consider your software

for

the IBM i operating environment running on Power Systems, please do

not

call it, iSeries, AS/400, System i, or my personal favorite

System/38.

Clearly if you don't know the name of the system your working on I
cannot trust your software. Most of the vendors monitor this list

and

don't hand me the line: "That's what our customers call it....."
Don't
correct the customer but always use the correct terminology when you
are
speaking and guess what, they will start using it too....

What brought this rant on? Three calls today from vendors asking

if I

would like to talk about their iSeries or AS/400 products.....

Geesh..

Now I'm starting to sound a bit like Trevor without the accent.....

I'll be quiet now.

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John Jones, CISSP
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