From Computer Business Review, a sister publication.
As far as many executives in the IBM AS/400 division are concerned, the choice of Greg LeMond, US cycling champion, as recipient of the 400,000th AS/400 system – and the first $8,000 Advanced Entry 150 model, a specially packaged multi-purpose server designed specifically for small businesses – is inspired (CI No 3,017). Pictures of LeMond, clutching his bike, are to adorn IBM marketing material across the globe.
The AS/400 business partners are less impressed. Trying to pass the AS/400 off as a leading-edge computer system while comparing it to a bike is not the most enlightened use of imagery, they say. But then poor marketing is seen as the hallmark of the AS/400 and one of the primary reasons why NT and Unix are managing to win customers today despite the A/400’s clear technology ease of use and cost of ownership advantages. IBM’s corporate marketing has throttled the virtues of one of its most important products, says Bob Djurdjevic of Annex. It is a fantastic machine but the marketing has killed it, says Nick Gomersall of JD Edwards. Almost in spite of IBM, the AS/400 has become the most widely recognized sub brand in the server market. But in many cases, that brand image is now working against rather than for the system. We recently advertised for a new financial director and we asked one of the people who came for an interview what they thought of the AS/400, says Paul Newman of Pacific Associates. She said, ‘the AS/400 is that mainframe system which is dying out isn’t it?’ That’s the view of someone who doesn’t even know about computers. Many associated with the product now feel that IBM has no chance of altering that perception. In the face of the giant Microsoft marketing machine and the combined weight of multiple Unix vendors, they say, the AS/400 is simply outclassed. Compounding this problem are two inherent features of the system – its scalability and its integration. The AS/400, says IBM, is the most scalable computer range in the world, supporting anything from one to several thousand users. But this wide business spread has left the AS/400 division with something of an identity disorder. The AS/400 doesn’t know if its meant to be in the corner store, a user department or the data center, says Newman. To try to resolve this issue, a number of business partners are trying to encourage IBM to change the name of the system at the low-end, splitting the AS/400 into two separate, but compatible, ranges. They are not likely to get their wish – according to IBM, branding specialists have said that tinkering with the product name would put the AS/400 back by three years and cost $40 million. The second problem is all to do with integration. Although the tightly integrated architecture of the AS/400 is at the root of the system’s cost and ease of use advantages, it means that the AS/400 has a limited infrastructure of middleware players to support it. Purchase decisions are increasingly being made on middleware – the AS/400 doesn’t have it, says Glen Osaka, head of Hewlett-Packard’s commercial server division. If you don’t have middleware you get put in a ghetto – doomed to 10% to 15% of the marketplace, says Newman.
