I have also been seeing this. Though, I don't think it has anything to
do with marketing or the notion that it might be old technology. Or, I
should say, not any more than usual. Losing folks due to that perception
has been an issue for a decade or more, and I don't think it has
increased lately.
But, I think there has been an increase of folks leaving due to the
notion that IBM doesn't care about the platform, or that IBM is
abandoning the platform.
A lot of this started with IBM changing the name YET AGAIN in spring.
They were already confused or frustrated with the name change from
iSeries to System i -- they already felt that the number of name changes
was absurd. When IBM changed it again in spring, they gave up in
frustration.
Another thing has been the press and forums. There has been a ton of
negativity both on Midrange.com and in the press talking about IBM not
really caring about our platform and "proving" it by showing numbers
that seem to suggest that IBM is not interested in supporting this
platform further. The enormous amount of FUD (Fear Uncertainty and
Doubt) in our community is perhaps the biggest reason why people are
leaving. They truly believe, in spite of the fact that IBM continues to
provide top notch support, lots of enhancements, etc, that IBM is trying
to discontinue the system. Neil Palmer, in particular, has caused an
extraordinary amount of people to give serious consideration to leaving
this platform.
Another factor, perhaps a smaller factor, but a factor nonetheless has
been the fact that IBM has been showing all POWER systems sales as
"System p" on their financial statements. So they show System i
declining rapidly (since the only System i sales are for old models
being phased out) and all new sales of new models -- even for IBM i
customers -- appears to be System p revenue. This makes it looks like
the System i is declining much faster than it really is, and that scares
people and convinces them not to bank on it for the future.
M. Lazarus wrote:
I am seeing more and more companies either moving away or at least
seriously looking into moving away from the i.
midrange.com
