Re: Opinion makes little difference - WAS: IBM investment in i

[Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Neil,

It would obviously be in our interest if IBM were to differentiate and 
market IBM i as you've asked.  But your overriding message is that the 
fate of the platform is hopeless.  So your position comes across as 
conflicted.  What are you asking?  That IBM clean up it's act?  Or that 
we resign ourselves to a hopeless fate?

IBM has done most of the damage they're likely to do to the platform. 
In the past, they failed to differentiate it from a marketing 
perspective, priced it significantly higher, and lied that the price 
difference was hardware related.  That was a tripple WAMMY against the 
platform.

So in comparison to IBM's shenanigans of the past , the merger of "i" 
and "p" and "Linux" under Power VM, and unbundling hardware and software 
pricing, is a step in the right direction.

And while market share slipped under IBM's former modus operandi, units 
sold tended to rise.  That was a good test of the platform's resiliency 
and clearly differentiates it from OS/2.  So your assertions about our 
hopeless fate appear to be unfounded.

IBM appears to be saying that "i", "AIX", and "Linux" are on equal 
footing from a marketing perspective.  While you may not be satisfied 
with that, it's a pretty big boon to many of us who continue to invest 
in the platform.

Of course, I was optimistic about the future of the platform and 
continued my personal investment in "i" centric Web technologies during 
the years that it appeared that IBM was bent on relentlessly milking it 
to death, so my initial optimism is beginning to pay off with IBM's 
recent moves.

Just as IBM morphed into a services company, IBM i is morphing into a 
Web centric platform, so the outlook is good, from my perspective.

Nathan.