Re: Tipton's COMMON opening speech -- MIDRANGE-L

Let me get this straight... Bob Tipton must prove himself worth of 
criticizing IBM by appearing in non-AS/400 magazines and letter writing 
campaigns? Let's look at how reasonable this is:

1. Articles in non-AS/400 magazines. Macintosh didn't achieve success 
BECAUSE of positive press, it achieved success DESPITE the negative press 
it has received over the past 16 years. You can make a case that Microsoft 
achieved its success through the press, but keep in mind that this was 
Microsoft-driven, not press-driven. Authors didn't write about Windows 
because they thought the world needed to know about Windows, they wrote 
about Windows because they got a bunch of free software and hardware from 
Microsoft, or because Microsoft invested heavily in their magazines.

BTW, the only person who has shown he can make or break software and 
hardware products by a simple mention in his column is John Dvorak. If 
Dvorak writes favorably about your product, hold on, because your sales are 
going to go through the roof! No offense to Bob Tipton, but outside of the 
AS/400 world, few people know who Bob is. Do you really think an article, 
or two, or twelve, will have any affect on AS/400 sales? Do you really 
think PC Week would print these articles?

2. Letter writing campaign. I have personal experience in this one. In the 
early 90s, a contingent of technical editors from Midrange Computing and 
NEWS/400 (including me) went to IBM Toronto to convince them that RPG was 
held back in the 1970s with silly constraints on fixed columns, tiny 
variable names, incoherent indicator naming conventions, and on and on. We 
brought with us HUNDREDS of letters from users of RPG/free, a free-format 
language pre-compiler that was available on at least four platforms, that 
went a long way in solving RPG's fundamental limitations. The letters, the 
NEWS/400 articles, and endless Compuserve and Newslink discussions --- 
accomplished nothing. So much for user revolts and letter campaigns!

  ... Chuck


At 10:54 PM 3/18/00 -0500, you wrote:
>And if he did know the internal struggles at IBM (and I know he 
>does),  what has Bob done to use his position to really effect some change 
>in the market place. Could you  point me to his Pro-AS/400 articles 
>in  PCweek, Computerworld,  Infoweek,
>Infoworld, CIO mag,   or any of the rest of the Non-AS/400 concentric 
>mags?   Has he initiated a letter writing pettion to Lou G.?   Has he 
>participated in any forum to voice his support?
>
>Other than his one page article in News/400 each month to the "Already Sold"
>
>Where else is he effecting the change that he claims to believe so 
>strongly in?

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