Re: iSeries (non-) Marketing - part 24,566

["M. Lazarus" <mlazarus@xxxxxxxx>]

Booth,

At 9/10/03 12:23 PM, you wrote:
> the iSeries is a niche product that appeals to the organization that wants a
> top to bottom solution and no finger pointing from the software supplier
> blaming the hardware supplier and vice versa.

 Why does that make it a niche product?  It is a general purpose business 
system.


> On that basis the pSeries customer is a different breed, and there's a lot
> more of them. Equal time is not appropriate, but IBM could get the
> demographics for the iSeries breed and of the pSeries breed and spend
> equally, per capita.

 How about starting by targeting industries / areas that are traditional 
iSeries strongholds (e.g. apparel, distribution, banking, etc.), and branch 
out from there.  I think that it has the potential to surpass pSeries sales 
in many areas, if only IBM would choose to do so.

 BTW, I believe that should IBM choose to push the box they MUST train and 
provide incentives to their sales people to sell the /400.  I know of 
several /400 sales that were "stolen" BY IBM SALES REPS to push the client 
to an RS/6000.

 If IBM doesn't "believe" in their own product, then how can the customer?

 -mark