Re: Biggest issue facing YOUR IBM i shop?

Since I mentioned the name... it was only in reference to our VP of Marketing and the CFO asking me what to call it, & specificially recalling the "lost sales" because our company was seen as "old". This is all from outside of IT, and in our business, the system is used heavily by the customers (via .net interface) as well as the internal users green screen. To sales, the marketing of our services includes the marketing of our system, and it was prospective customer's pointed questions that started the management request. (the prospects were generally expecting either Oracle or some Sql database)
I did suggest to management that for customers, calling it an IBM Power Systems could be a simpler alternative description.
I have no interest in name wars on this list.
Jim


----- Original Message ----- From: "John Yeung" <gallium.arsenide@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, August 12, 2013 10:31 PM
Subject: Re: Biggest issue facing YOUR IBM i shop?

I can't believe I'm letting myself get sucked into this, but:

I promise you, it's not the name.

Let me repeat that, because I cannot stress this enough:

It. Is. Not. The. Name.

Should we all do a better job of educating others? Yes, of course.

But the name is not the problem. I mean, it might be *a* problem, but
it sure as hell is not *the* problem. There are folks who don't know
what an AS/400 is, don't know what an iSeries is, and don't know what
an IBM i is. They don't even know enough about the AS/400 to even
have the idea (rightly or wrongly) that it is an outdated platform.

Conversely, almost anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the
IBM i knows its AS/400 roots. Some of these folks have a *good*
impression of the AS/400. They *like* the i *because* it is the
latest successor to the AS/400. Others don't like the AS/400, and by
association don't like the i.

If you pin your education campaign (to "outsiders") on the name thing,
you will look like you are slapping "IBM i" lipstick on the AS/400
pig. I swear. (And if you pin your education campaign to "insiders"
on the name thing, you will look like a pedantic... um, well, let's
just say you'll look unnecessarily pedantic.)

Educate people by showing (not just telling) what the i can do. Or
what the AS/400 can do for that matter. (I know someone using
iSeriesPython very productively on his V4R5 machine. And I did not
mix up the 4 and the 5. I know others using iSeriesPython on modern i
boxes.)

I'm not saying that we should be sloppy with the name. But the degree
to which some people harp on the name and go on and on and on is
really not helping (see lipstick, pig, pedant).

John


P.S. I personally have nothing against pigs.
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