Re: Does anyone read the e-mails from [mailto:db2@news.db2mag.com]

On Aug 1, 9:45 pm, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: > Gumpy, > > You are not quite fair to IBM. I went out to their DB2mag website and > I see Carltons' book out there on the front page. IBM is not exactly ignoring > IDS. But I get your points. Do you also get the iiug e-mailer? I got my issue an I did a quick read. A couple of things stood out. Did you see the list of blog sites? The majority were IBM internal sites. Outside of that.. One was JGP's site (an IIUG insider) and then Eric's site. Not mentioned. OTC's blog which shows the mind of a twisted individual of a clown. (Must be British. Just look at the teeth. :-) Which goes back to the big issue. How is the Message getting out? All you have is preaching to the choir. No talking points. Its no wonder that IDS is the IT industry's best kept secret. But hey! What do I know? -G PS Thanks Mark for making my point about Oracle. ;-)

Gumpy, I get the mailer, I see the IIUG stuff. It's all good. I get several emails from IBM as a VAR, they have no IDS information at all, instead they are pushing Websphere, and a lot of useless crap that I'm not sure anybody is actually using. You shouldn't complain about blogs, geeez blogs are a lot of work, so the ones that are out are enough. As you too often point out IDS needs marketing. But it's not going to happen as long as IBM owns Informix software. None of the people who are in control have the mental capacity to think outside their IBM zone. But let's talk about Oracle for a moment... What might not be readily apparent about Oracle shops is that they all pretty much are resigned to "Oracle is the way it is and so we must deal with it on its terms". I recently attended a sales pitch on 3rd-party replication for Oracle. Oracle has Streams, its replication 'method', which is very limited in how you can use it and what your options are. I'm a bit surprised that IBM hasn't done more to show off what you can do with Informix. In fact my client found the 3rd-party product very attractive, and was even willing to put their database options on the table in order to save money and move to another database, even Postgres and MySQL came up. MySQL even has better replication options than Oracle. I mentioned Informix, but there was a noticeable silence, and the conversation moved on to other options, more than likely they will go with the 3rd-party replication. Anyway...IBM is incapable of marketing Informix, you should just give up on that idea. You'll be retired before those dolts at IBM do anything. -ID- Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > On Aug 1, 9:45 pm, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: >> Gumpy, >> >> You are not quite fair to IBM. I went out to their DB2mag website and >> I see Carltons' book out there on the front page. IBM is not exactly ignoring >> IDS. But I get your points. > > Do you also get the iiug e-mailer? > > I got my issue an I did a quick read. > > A couple of things stood out. > > Did you see the list of blog sites? > The majority were IBM internal sites. > Outside of that.. One was JGP's site (an IIUG insider) and then Eric's > site. > > Not mentioned. OTC's blog which shows the mind of a twisted individual > of a clown. (Must be British. Just look at the teeth. :-) > > Which goes back to the big issue. How is the Message getting out? All > you have is preaching to the choir. No talking points. > > Its no wonder that IDS is the IT industry's best kept secret. > > But hey! What do I know? > > -G > > PS Thanks Mark for making my point about Oracle. ;-)

On Aug 5, 11:03 am, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: > Gumpy, > > I get the mailer, I see the IIUG stuff.  It's all good.   I get several emails > from IBM as a VAR, they have no IDS information at all, instead they are pushing > Websphere, and a lot of useless crap that I'm not sure anybody is actually using. > You shouldn't complain about blogs, geeez blogs are a lot of work, so the ones > that are out are enough.  As you too often point out IDS needs marketing.  But > it's not going to happen as long as IBM owns Informix software.  None of the people > who are in control have the mental capacity to think outside their IBM zone. > In deep, No and Yes. ;-) No about complaining about the blogs, and Yes, marketing is an issue that IBM no longer grasps. I think you're missing the point. I'll admit its a subtle point that clearly IBM execs have been missing over the years. If I was a customer who didn't know IDS existed, how would I find these blogs or resources? I'll give you an example... In rural South Carolina, just outside of Yemasse (exit 38 off I-95) there is this old gas station called Harold's Country Club. (Harold passed away a couple of years ago, but I believe his family still keeps the place going.) Its right off of Highway 17 or is it 17A? so you have a lot of cars passing by. The thing about Harold's Country Club is that Harold converted the old gas station in to a bar up front, and a "restaurant" in the back. On weekends, there are two servings. You could get a big steak (grass fed), A baked potato and a side salad for $12.00. Great place to eat, nothing fancy but good food. The only choice you had was when you called in your reservation was how you wanted your steak. You are sitting in a big garage eating at picnic benches or card tables on whatever sort of recycled chairs they had. (Folding, plastic lawn chairs, whatever). All the locals went there. Occasionally, someone would see the cars out front and stop by to see what was up. So Harold got some business by word of mouth. One a month or every other month, he'd get a biker club out of Charleston ride up en mass. But other than that it was pretty quiet. (The occasional Marines drove in from Beaufort to hang out, drink and play pool in the front bar.) So unless you knew it was there. What it was, or heard about it via word of mouth, you'd never know it existed. Pretty quiet and business was good and slowly grew over the years. Then one day, Martha Stewart does a show from Harold's CC. Now the word was out and anyone who watched Martha and was within a 2 hour drive (Charleston, Augusta, Columbia, Savannah, Hilton Head) would call in and come on down. Business was booming. The point ... Where's IDS's Martha Stewart? Yes you can have blogs. When you go to IBM's website and look at solid, both IDS and DB2 are supported. Equally. But that's all good, but worthless unless you have some way to get the attention of your potential customer. The subtle point that is missing is that while you have IBMers doing the right thing with their blogs, they are within the IBM fold and are not attracting outside eyes. Ever read Dr. Dobbs? There's this guy. Scott W. Ambler. (If you're an IBMer you can find him on Blue Pages). > But let's talk about Oracle for a moment... > > What might not be readily apparent about Oracle shops is that they all > pretty much are resigned to "Oracle is the way it is and so we must deal with > it on its terms". > Oh I know a lot about some Oracle shops. I'm working in one that's one of the worlds largest producers of Map Data. ;-) > > Anyway...IBM is incapable of marketing Informix, you should just give up on > that idea.  You'll be retired before those dolts at IBM do anything. > > -ID- > Ah that's where your wrong. IBM's IM "marketing team" is trying to tap in to grass roots marketing and viral marketing. Only they don't really understand what it means to fully implement a grass roots marketing or a viral marketing campaign. An example... IIUG.tv. Or Stuart's contest to create videos that the IIUG could use with the winner getting admission to IOD or another Informix conference for free. (a $1000.00) value. Nice idea, but not well thought out or planned out. The point is that if you take a foam core carbon fiber clue stick and smack them upside the head, they may start to an idea.... No really. they're just incredibly slow on the uptake. It takes about 6-12 months for an idea to sink in. I guess its the fact that everyone who works for IBM has to have a natural defense shell in order to survive. Maybe if you can take them out of the big blue pig, they might think clearer. I mean, how many times do you have to tell them that sales reps need to sell a story, a solution. Just giving them a product, they're lost. Note to Jerry K. Ask Sam P and Steve Mills if they've got a couple of million they want to throw at a research project. I can guarantee you that it would be definitely worth the effort. But hey! What do I know? I escaped the blue pig and it only took me a year before I could think clearly... ;-) -G

Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > > But hey! What do I know? > I escaped the blue pig and it only took me a year before I could think > clearly... ;-) > Still another six months to go then? :o> -- Cheers, Obnoxio the Clown http://obotheclown.blogspot.com

Ian Michael Gumby wrote: > On Aug 5, 11:03 am, InDeep <ind...@indeep.com> wrote: >> Gumpy, >> >> I get the mailer, I see the IIUG stuff. It's all good. I get several emails >> from IBM as a VAR, they have no IDS information at all, instead they are pushing >> Websphere, and a lot of useless crap that I'm not sure anybody is actually using. >> You shouldn't complain about blogs, geeez blogs are a lot of work, so the ones >> that are out are enough. As you too often point out IDS needs marketing. But >> it's not going to happen as long as IBM owns Informix software. None of the people >> who are in control have the mental capacity to think outside their IBM zone. >> > In deep, No and Yes. ;-) No about complaining about the blogs, and > Yes, marketing is an issue that IBM no longer grasps. > > I think you're missing the point. > I'll admit its a subtle point that clearly IBM execs have been missing > over the years. > > If I was a customer who didn't know IDS existed, how would I find > these blogs or resources? > YOU are missing the point. IBM as a company is not interested in doing anything beyond mechanical, wooden, corporate plantation communication. You keep throwing stones at a window with bullet-proof glass, and somehow expecting a different result. IBM has all the time in the world to do anything they want, there is no motivation from any of those wooden, mechanical bots to do anything outside their automaton existence. IBM doesn't care about blogs, they already have that checked off the list, and anything else they actually _do_ put out has to follow the robotic plan, nothing else is important. There are too many controls in place at IBM to keep people in check, so even if there are a few brave souls, they are never enough to change anything. Regarding viral marketing, it can't work for Informix unless there is a starting point, such as an endorsement from some big company that says Informix is ok, use it. And that message can't come from some unknown VAR that nobody knows about or cares about. It has to be a part of the campaign, to boot strap the virus. There used to be this thing called marketing, where the vendor gave away stuff ( swag ) to get some material buy-in from developers, DBAs, and managers. I still have a Informix coffee cup or two, haven't for the life of me figured out why I should save the damn things, but somehow that connection kept me linked to the product. Back to the basics, t-shirts, coffee cups, pens, pencils, and Informix will be back. -ID-

InDeep wrote: > Regarding viral marketing, ... Well, don't let IBM near anything with viral marketing. You would regret it.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmtXaZ_HhBg&feature=related -- Serge Rielau DB2 Solutions Development IBM Toronto Lab

Serge Rielau wrote: > InDeep wrote: >> Regarding viral marketing, ... > Well, don't let IBM near anything with viral marketing. You would regret > it.... > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmtXaZ_HhBg&feature=related > Wow - what a cool use of marketing money. You guys rock.