Re: When It Couldn't Get Any Better
Not a technical thread: it's an opinion/marketing debate about IBM's stewardship of Informix. The poster complains IBM lacks vision, passion and a decent promotional campaign for the product, and urges IBM staff to make videos, hold conferences in bigger cities and generally be more vocal. Replies argue IBM is deliberately satisfied with Informix's niche position, that corporate culture and budget/approval rules prevent grass-roots promotion, and that the Kansas conference location suits the developers. No technical problem or resolution is recorded.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
My Dearest Daniel, Let's not generalize the c.d.i. population into a collective, hive mind. This is to totally miss the point of what I'm posting about. It is in the c.d.i diversity that I think things will improve over time if there is a way to find common ground. Attacking people is not going to help. You should respect c.d.i. readers and embrace the insanely diverse personalities here in this group. The Informix acquisition for IBM was a movie in search of a good script; it has turned into a collection of different scenarios, but never a really good story with any kind of good screen direction. Just a collection of scenes. It is essentially a headless operation, with no clearly defined vision, or passion, which is what the original Informix was all about. What I'm looking for from IBM is a good script, good visuals, and a really great story. When I see that I'll believe that Informix won't get mired down in the same boring muddle of nothing that makes up most of what IBM offers. There are some jewels in IBMs' basket, and these jewels shouldn't suffer any more missed opportunities just because the collective, hive mind at IBM can't see what they are missing. It is an appeal quite simply, not an unreasonable expectation, that a really great product deserves a really great marketing campaign. If you think what has been delivered is acceptable, then you really have no imagination or passion for the product. If there are videos to make, they should come from IBM. If there is a promotion it should come from IBM. If there are any people at IBM, and not just robots, I appeal to you to get off your ass and make some noise--shake it up! Once you get done wasting time in Kansas, make your next conference in Vegas or even better, Los Angeles. Go to ground zero and kick it. If you want some help say so. -ID- DA Morgan wrote: > Why does it never occur to this group that IBM is not a stupid company > and is doing precisely what it decided to do when it acquired Informix. > > You may not like it that your personal playtoy is where it is. But IBM > didn't acquire Informix because it saw a great strategic opportunity > in having a second, competing, database product. > > In all of the years Informix has been an IBM product the behavior of > IBM has been consistent. And consistency is a clear indication that > they are perfectly pleased with where things are.
InDeep wrote: > If there are videos to make, they should come from IBM. The video has already been made. You are watching it. -- Daniel A. Morgan University of Washington damorgan@x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)
> From: indeep@indeep.com > If there are videos to make, they should come from IBM. If there is a promotion > it should come from IBM. If there are any people at IBM, and not just robots, > I appeal to you to get off your ass and make some noise--shake it up! Once > you get done wasting time in Kansas, make your next conference in Vegas or > even better, Los Angeles. Go to ground zero and kick it. If you want some > help say so. > > And I think it was explained that IBM can't do the sort of grass roots videos that they need. Lack of money, lack of approval. At IBM, there are mice. Well maybe that's not a good statement. At IBM, you have an assigned roll with boundaries. You do what you're told and you don't go outside the lines drawn for you. And that's a problem. You have defined roles, defined boundaries and then there are gaps between what you are responsible for and what the other guy is responsible for. So if something fails outside of your box, its not your fault. Today's culture of IBM isn't the culture of the 60's and 70's. (And that's not a good thing.) As to the conference in KS, its where the IBM developers live. So you can get a better, more technical conference than if you hosted it elsewhere. _________________________________________________________________ Climb to the top of the charts! Play the word scramble challenge with star power. http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_jan
DA Morgan wrote: > InDeep wrote: > >> If there are videos to make, they should come from IBM. > > The video has already been made. You are watching it. Why are you here?