IBM's Machine name Du Jour News

The latest edition

I got the latest edition of iSeries News last night. I read a little bit, but not all of it.

Roger Pence is back. Yea! I like his style - Somewhat of a curmudgeon and an IBM slammer when it comes to what IBM is doing and what he believes IBM should be doing. It strikes a chord with me somehow.

IBM's marketing arm goes "thunk" - again

What caught my eye was the interview of the new marketing queen. It was a little sickening to read as I came away not believing she "gets it". We all know the kind of advertising IBM does and it seems they will be doing more of it. I will never warm up to the idea that an ex employee of a series of now defunct companies earns the right to market a product for IBM such as the System i5. To me, this defies common sense.

A sidebar article was about IBM's recent name change of the iSeries to System i5. They defend their stand on the issue of its rename citing the fact that the iSeries is more than just a server box; it's a whole system.

It would seem to me that if you wanted to confuse the market place a good way to do it would entail renaming your hardware line every few years. It's the same machine, just a different name.

As most of us already know, for IBM to cite their reasons this late in the naming game (intellectual catch up about what the machine has always been) it should be a warning flag that their marketing arm fell on the floor several years ago. On the other hand, Microsoft could sell a bag of hot, steamy dog shit to a kennel and make the purchaser believe they got something worthy of using. Oh boy!

What about the magazine?

Keeping all of these name changes in mind, it would stand to reason the magazine will soon be renamed to something like "System i5 News". Or maybe even "IBM's Machine name du jour News". The last option would be less expensive and would indicate a full understanding of their market dynamics, contrary to IBM's.

And the beat goes on.