RE: IBM-Sun takeover talks 'collapse'

> From: jack.parker4@verizon.net > To: informix-list@iiug.org > Subject: RE: IBM-Sun takeover talks 'collapse' > Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:23:04 -0400 > > > > Thats the thing. Customers call Cisco, Cisco support IDS as part of their > product. If Cisco's L3 can't handle it, then Cisco calls IBM, not the > customer. > > Cisco TAC has no hesitation about telling the customer to call IBM. The > only reason the ODBC setup is handled by TAC is that it is such a common > occurence that they have learned to deal with it, and customer support is > important. AFAIK, there has been no need to re-direct the customer to IBM > because the d*mn thing just works. > > j. > Sure, But don't tell anyone! You'll spoil IBM's grand scheme of things... <Just between you and me...> Didn't you know that this stealth marketing is the brain child of someone reallly smurt at IBM? I mean heck, they don't do the marketing.... The IIUG does it for them. They are getting the Informix User community to do all of their marketing for them. After all, the Informix User Community includes some of the 'white space' where IBM traditionally doesn't do well. (More on this in a sec...) You have to admire the genius of this... Someone is getting paid for doing nothing while taking credit for the continual increase in sales. Then their boss takes credit and looks even smurter. :-P So they all have job security because they can all point to the ever growing base of Informix and claim 'victory' for doing 'nothing'. That's the big secret and you truly have to admire the creativity of the slackers. </end Just between you and me ...> Of course if we look at the larger scheme of IBM's marketing, its merely the same old plan from their 60's and 70's playbook. Total lack of creativity on today's marketing staff. What IBM markets is IBM. That no matter how expensive or inefficient their solution is, its an IBM solution. So you can trust IBM to deliver an IBM solution. Large companies that have been long time IBM customers have been brainwashed in to just *trusting* IBM to deliver a solution. Whatever IBM says, it must be ok, and remember, nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM. Unfortunately that doesn't play well in the real world. There are customers that have either been burned by IBM or that their staff is too smart (notice smart, not smurt) to fall for IBM's marketing. They'll do their own research, run their own numbers and not trust a vendor, even if he's telling the truth. (And I'm not saying that all vendors lie, or lie all the time... just that you can't trust what a vendor says until you see it for yourself.) As I alluded to earlier, the 'white space' are the customers that can afford an IBM solution but choose not to use IBM as a vendor, or a vendor of last resort. This means that you can include a customer that has legacy apps on IBM mainframes yet their LUW world contains no IBM products. I'll go more in to detail in a different post. I'm starting to get more serious than I wanted and I meant for this post to be a bit tongue in cheek blast at Alyse and Inhi for their slacker like attitude towards Informix in terms of shaping the S&D and marketing efforts. Oh and yeah, I *do* know more than I can talk about, but that doesn't mean I can't talk about a lot of stuff. ;-) -G _________________________________________________________________ Rediscover Hotmail®: Now available on your iPhone or BlackBerry http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Mobile1_042009