Maxed Out
Because the System i can run at redline speed all day long . . .
April 28, 2008
The Surprising Power and i Pro: Marketing
The bane of the System i and AS/400 world has been marketing. If only IBM would have promoted the System i . . . Well, forget about it because those days are gone. However, Power and i brings up a surprising new positive factor for the i world -- marketing. Now that the i and p are officially merged, it gives IBM a bit more leeway in how it can promote the Power lineup. Granted, most of IBM's constraints were self-imposed, but in understanding the nature of the beast, there's one less way IBM can mortify itself and business partners by favoring one sibling over another.
The Power of 'Power'
IBM has a great name for its new Power ecosystem, and that's what it has become, an ecosystem. Power is based on the POWER6 processors, which are wicked fast, and as IBM plays king of the Unix hill with HP and Sun, Power shines from the top. The odds that potential i customers will see Power on top and come to recognize that Power Systems and POWER6 processor represent top-notch technology, the more meaning it will have when an IBM Business Partner tries to sell an i-based solution. 
So when the issues of operating systems and hardware come up -- and they might even come up at different times -- the point that IBM i runs on IBM's most versatile and powerful Power servers can only help.
Power Is Extensible
The Power brand is also something IBM can utilize for more than just hardware. The company has already got a great name for its virtualization layer -- PowerVM -- and it's using it for other solutions such as PowerHA. Plus, we're seeing it in purely marketing and sales efforts such as Power Rewards, which is designed to pull customers off HP and Sun. Although this last program isn't i-specific, at least it's promoting the Power brand and getting non-IBM customers a little closer to IBM i land -- well, at least within sight of it.
As for the Power Equation marketing . . . that's not a bad idea, really. It's engaging and gives sellers potential talking points and customers reasons to run on Power. One IBM Power Systems product page lists some key equations:
- Power = performance + scalability
- Power = modularity + flexibility
- Power = compute + cool
- Power = choice + flexibility
I must admit that visually in logo form "i for Business" doesn't look that bad -- and I was previously caustic about using "i for Business," particularly if anyone had to actually say it in a sentence when speaking out loud. So, yeah, I'm softening a bit on i for Business but only because a better spoken-out-loud option is still available: IBM i.
Overall, the System i's strength was that it was so different -- and ultimately that was its Achilles' heel, too. In IBM's new Power world, IBM i running on a hardware system that is sure to gain both mind and market share is a good thing.
Posted by cmaxcer at April 28, 2008 10:08 AM
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