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

"Name of the week" ... really. It's been well established that this is an exaggeration worthy of a politician!

We have met the enemy, and it is US!

Using the excuse that "somebody else calls it that so I will too" is a guarantee that the old name will never die. Heck IBM service itself when I report a problem asks me for the operating system and server. I tell them "IBM i on Power Systems" and they WAYTOOFREEKINGOFTEN reply: "So OS/400 on AS/400 then." I *ALWAYS sigh loudly into the phone, then I correct them, usually reminding them that there have been no AS/400's built this century.

Sure your customers may in fact say "AS/400" or "iSeries". First time they do let them know that on the front of the system it says "POWER" and the operating system is IBM i. After that simply let them say what they want but ALWAYS use the correct names yourself. Sure a few times they may come back with "You mean the AS/400?" but after being corrected a couple times they'll get it. Customers don't want people to think they're unenlightened clue-free cave dwelling curmudgeons either. It's curious really how easily they will change with our help.

If we put 1/2 the effort into using the proper, current, and correct names for our beloved platform ourselves that we've put into all this whining about wanting our AS/400 back, AS/400 would live only in midrange.com's archives and somewhere on wikipedia - oh and on Trevor's history charts.

- Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis


On 12/11/2012 9:31 PM, Robert Munday 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.

--
This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list
To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options,
visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l
or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives
at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.