Re: Getting to the analysts and consultants
Not a technical problem but an advocacy/business debate: a report that IBM Global Services recommended Oracle to an existing Informix customer sparked discussion about how to get the Informix message to analysts and consultants. Serge Rielau (IBM) offered to escalate internally but said he needed the customer name and verifiable facts, which the original poster withheld. Others argued IGS and ISVs (SAP, Baan, Lawson) never propose Informix because in-house skills and revenue favour Oracle/DB2, and urged grass-roots correction of misinformation plus IDS certification of IBM IT specialists. No resolution is recorded.
Auto-generated by DrWatson from the posts below — may be imperfect; read the full thread.
Jerry Hamilton wrote: > I'd like to see the background of this situation > posted here. If CP doesn't care for confidentiality of his employer I couldn't care less. But nothing will change if all the good stuff is blacked out. No, matter what, I don't think the IBMers involved are high enough in the food chain that they have to expect being named and slammed in public. Executives have to expect getting heat like that. Troops shouldn't IMHO. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
> From: srielau@ca.ibm.com> Subject: Re: Getting to the analysts and consultants> Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:16:09 -0500> To: informix-list@iiug.org> > Jerry Hamilton wrote:> > I'd like to see the background of this situation> > posted here.> If CP doesn't care for confidentiality of his employer I couldn't care less.> But nothing will change if all the good stuff is blacked out.> > No, matter what, I don't think the IBMers involved are high enough in > the food chain that they have to expect being named and slammed in public.> Executives have to expect getting heat like that. Troops shouldn't IMHO.> Now Serge, you say that I'm patronizing you. Silly boy, if you really wanted to help, all you would need to know is the customer name. Then behind the scenes you find out who the client rep is and then dig further in to the story. (After all, until you confirm the facts, its just a story.) But then again, you're in the labs and not S&D. You don't have access to the Siebel CRM system to take a look at the deal. You want to help, you have two options. Option A, find a friend who works down the road from you in the dot com sales office. Option B, find out the customer, then the S&D region of said customer. Put out a call to the DM ... sorry IM IT specialist who covers the region and ask him for a helping hand to get to the bottom of this.... Option B may be easier, cause after all, the IT Specialist may need a favor from you some day ... But hey! What do I know? Its not like I was working for the lab and cross matrixed to S&D... ;-) -Gumby... PS. Maybe I should change my name to Jim diGriz. ;-) _________________________________________________________________ Watch “Cause Effect,” a show about real people making a real difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause
Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > Now Serge, you say that I'm patronizing you. Yeah, I know. I should have said that a long time ago, sorry. > Silly boy, if you really wanted to help, all you would need to know is > the customer name. That is the minimum requirement. Yes. But assuming I get that I can hardly ask Arvind to rattle the cage by pointing him to this newsgroup complaint. It needs something a bit more trustworthy.... Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
Serge, you missed the point. You get the name of the customer. You make a few calls and get the real scoop. You line up the facts and depending on how it plays out, then you decide to contact arvind. Oh the stories I could tell... ;-) > From: srielau@ca.ibm.com> Subject: Re: Getting to the analysts and consultants> Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 22:32:10 -0500> To: informix-list@iiug.org> > Ian Michael Gumby wrote:> > Now Serge, you say that I'm patronizing you.> Yeah, I know. I should have said that a long time ago, sorry.> > > Silly boy, if you really wanted to help, all you would need to know is > > the customer name.> That is the minimum requirement. Yes.> But assuming I get that I can hardly ask Arvind to rattle the cage by > pointing him to this newsgroup complaint.> It needs something a bit more trustworthy....> > Cheers> Serge> -- > Serge Rielau> DB2 Solutions Development> IBM Toronto Lab> _______________________________________________> Informix-list mailing list> Informix-list@iiug.org> http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list _________________________________________________________________ Watch “Cause Effect,” a show about real people making a real difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause
Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > You get the name of the customer. Seems like CP is holding the key, err, name here.... -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
"Serge Rielau" <srielau@ca.ibm.com> wrote in message news:5ub5mrF1h75j8U1@mid.individual.net... > Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > > You get the name of the customer. > Seems like CP is holding the key, err, name here.... I think you're missing the point he (she?) was making. Which is that Stuart Litel is right, and the Informix message needs to be taken to the Consultants and other un-believers, and that isn't happening. Everyone seems quite exercised by this case in which IBM Global Services recommended Oracle to an Informix site. But why? Does anyone really believe that IGS, or any other global consultancy, ever recommends Informix to a "greenfield" site? Of course they don't. *That* - and the convincing of SAP, Baan, Lawson etc - are the battles that are being lost.
Neil Truby wrote: > Everyone seems quite exercised by this case in which IBM Global Services > recommended Oracle to an Informix site. But why? On my end? It's a battle I can help fight. Cheers Serge -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab
> > Neil Truby wrote:> > Everyone seems quite exercised by this case in which IBM Global Services > > recommended Oracle to an Informix site. But why? > On my end? It's a battle I can help fight.> > Cheers> Serge Really Serge? Rather than dump a list of things you can't do, here's one that you *can* do.... In North America, find all of the FLM (First Line Managers) of the Information Management IT Specialists. (There's not that many, definitely less than 50 in NA) Call them, one on one, and ask them how many direct reports they have. (This is the number of IT specialists on their team.) Ask them how many of those direct reports are DB2 certified. Then ask them how many of them are IDS certified. And for the $64,000 (USD) question.... "What are they doing to get their non IDS certified staff certified on IDS?". Maybe if you're talented, you could create an easy to read and understand high level of the product offerings of IM and how they can be used and interact with one another? But hey! What do I know. I've asked that same question of a local FLM here in Central. The silence was deafening. -G _________________________________________________________________ Make distant family not so distant with Windows Vista® + Windows Live™. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/digitallife/keepintouch.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_VideoChat_distantfamily_012008
> From: neil.truby@ardenta.com> I think you're missing the point he (she?) was making. Which is that Stuart > Litel is right, and the Informix message needs to be taken to the > Consultants and other un-believers, and that isn't happening.> Take what Stuart says with a grain of salt. The key of Stuart's message is that there needs to be more of a grass roots effort on the part of the community. When they see misinformation, they should attempt to correct it. Hell, I'm in an Oracle shop and everyone knows that while I support Oracle, I'm an Informix bigot. (Yes, I have my Informix coffee mug in plain site... ;-) While I know that I can't change them from using Oracle, I can at least help open the door to a relationship with IBM. (And its up to IBM to take advantage of the opened door.) > Everyone seems quite exercised by this case in which IBM Global Services > recommended Oracle to an Informix site. But why? Does anyone really > believe that IGS, or any other global consultancy, ever recommends Informix > to a "greenfield" site? Of course they don't. *That* - and the convincing > of SAP, Baan, Lawson etc - are the battles that are being lost. > Ask yourself why would you recommend a product that you have no "in-house" expertise and would require bringing in more people to your deal, reducing the revenue that you capture? Doesn't work that way. If you're Baan, SAP, Lawson, etc ... why maintain a port that isn't drawing customers? Or where IBM (Janet Perna) has tried to convince them to throw more support behind DB2? Oh the stories I could tell. -G _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live. http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGHM_Wave2_sharelife_012008
>At IBM its no longer "do what's best for your customer, then do whats best for IBM." Its now "Do whatever it takes to sell your services so you'll have a job and not be made redundant." >So if all you know is Oracle or you have Oracle guys on the bench.... You sell Oracle. If what you have on the bench is Oracle skilled people is what is best for IBM and the customer to sell Informix / DB2 / U2 / IMS or sell Oracle? Is what is best for IBM also what is best for SWG IM? And IGS sells many solutions that work with Oracle, in fact SWG now has many "solutions" that has huge Oracle customer bases and as a result have many technical professionals skilled in Oracle and not in IDS / DB2 / U2 / IMS
At least someone is starting to see the "bigger" picture. ;-) And someone pointed out that the IGS guy was saying this to an existing Informix customer. But that doesn't really matter. People will say things that they may think as true in an effort to sell the customer something new. > From: dryburghj@yahoo.com > Subject: Re: Getting to the analysts and consultants > Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 07:03:54 -0800 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > > >At IBM its no longer "do what's best for your customer, then do whats best for IBM." Its now "Do whatever it takes to sell your services so you'll have a job and not be made redundant." > >So if all you know is Oracle or you have Oracle guys on the bench.... You sell Oracle. > > If what you have on the bench is Oracle skilled people is what is best > for IBM and the customer to sell Informix / DB2 / U2 / IMS or sell > Oracle? Is what is best for IBM also what is best for SWG IM? > > And IGS sells many solutions that work with Oracle, in fact SWG now > has many "solutions" that has huge Oracle customer bases and as a > result have many technical professionals skilled in Oracle and not in > IDS / DB2 / U2 / IMS > > > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list _________________________________________________________________ Put your friends on the big screen with Windows Vista® + Windows Live™. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/shop/specialoffers.mspx?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_CPC_MediaCtr_bigscreen_012008
"scottishpoet" <dryburghj@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:01dcb0e0-65b0-4797-bcbe-601829bdc4a6@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com... > >At IBM its no longer "do what's best for your customer, then do whats > >best for IBM." Its now "Do whatever it takes to sell your services so > >you'll have a job and not be made redundant." >>So if all you know is Oracle or you have Oracle guys on the bench.... You >>sell Oracle. > > If what you have on the bench is Oracle skilled people is what is best > for IBM and the customer to sell Informix / DB2 / U2 / IMS or sell > Oracle? What's best for the customer should *not* be a function of the skills IBM has available.