On Thu, Oct 24, 2019 at 10:50 AM Jon Paris <jon.paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The point about using the "right" name is more a question of avoiding having a very modern, very capable system branded as being "old fashioned" - because like it or not that is how "AS/400" is viewed but the outside world.
I agree that people on the outside by and large view "AS/400" as old
fashioned. But (1) I don't think that's the only thing people think
about it, and (2) I am not convinced that changing the name is the
best way to accomplish changing perceptions.
To the first point, of the people I've met on the outside who have
heard of the AS/400, most of them actually view it favorably. They
don't know much about it, but they know it's reliable. And they know
that IBM makes heavy-duty machines that are suitable for running
businesses on. The very idea of "a reliable machine for business" is,
frankly, kind of unsexy. But well respected.
To the second point, from where I'm sitting, we have collectively put
a lot of effort into getting people to use the IBM i name. It would
actually be much, much easier to simply let people continue to say
AS/400, even today, with IBM i being the longest-tenured name for the
platform. Has this effort been effective? Has it been valuable? Has it
worked out better than if the same amount of energy had gone into
adjusting the associations people have with the AS/400 name?
I think all of us are in different environments, so there's no
one-size-fits-all. But I can tell you with 100% certainty that my own
efforts to get people to use the "correct" name have done nothing but
increase confusion and waste time. What has at least had *some*
positive effect is writing software that meets the users' needs better
than older software. All the users say "these new spreadsheets coming
from the Four Hundred are way better than those old print-outs" and
"you want me to point my browser to the Four Hundred instead of using
the green screen? Sure!".
I get that I'm dealing with end users rather than executives who
control the money. But my understanding is that executives care about
reliability and TCO more than pretty much anything. I am definitely
not convinced that trying to sell them something they've never heard
of (IBM i) is actually a better play than trying to convince them that
something they already know is reliable (AS/400) is *also* modern and
capable.
As for recruiting new blood and expanding horizons, I think all the
open source stuff is doing wonders. I think we can sell PASE as
"something kinda sorta like Linux" equally well whether it's on an
AS/400 or on an IBM i. If you run an ad to the general public that
says "program in Python on an AS/400" against one that says "program
in free-form RPG on an IBM i", which one do you think will attract
more people? (Hint: The question is not *whether* the AS/400 ad would
win, but by how many orders of magnitude.)
John Y.
midrange.com
