Re: WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO BRING NEW CUSTOMERS TO THE ISERIES

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

jt wrote:

> | -----Original Message-----
> | [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Hans Boldt
>
> | So to answer the question of how to bring customers to your favorite
> | chunk of hardware: Develop applications on that hardware that customers
> | want. Then market those apps.
>
> This is true, to a large extent.
>
> But all ways of marketing that I've seen, either directly or indirectly,
> market a platform.
>
> Windows, *nix, Mac, Sun, cross-platform (Oracle, etc.), or dinosaurs...
> These seem to be the platforms that are marketed.  (But not saying that apps
> are secondary, either.)
> ...

For the most part, most of the hardware platforms that are advertised 
are commodity items. That is, when you want a particular application, 
there is a choice of platform to run that on. For a Unix app (for 
example), you can choose the best valued piece of machinery from a 
variety of hardware vendors (including IBM) to run your app. In such a 
market, advertising has a chance to sway a purchaser.

In the case of the iSeries, if a needed application can only run on that 
hardware, there's really no choice for the buyer. A sale of that app 
means a sale of a machine (if the buyer doesn't already have one).

That then raises the $64,000 question: Is it worthwhile for a software 
vendor to produce an application that only runs on one particular platform?

Cheers! Hans