In a remarkable piece of timing, almost as though it didn’t want to attract much attention to the move, IBM chose Maundy Thursday ahead of the Easter holiday to announce in the US a comprehensive support programme intended to alleviate the critical applications gap on the 9370. The marketing support programme is designed to help businesses convert to the 9370 or to incorporate it into multi-vendor environments, and the software conversion and coexistence programme provides staff support to ease the transfer of applications from non-IBM environments to the 9370. It is also intended to assist in integrating the 9370 into multi-vendor networks. Under the conversion and coexistence programme, teams of IBM programmers and mid-range software specialists are being assigned to the 13 field areas that make up IBM’s US Marketing & Services Group with a mission to help current and potential customers transfer selected applications to the 9370 and to demonstrate how IBM mid-range processors can connect and communicate with other vendors’ processors and networks. The US wide move follows a pilot programme in Denver, which enjoyed great success. The field teams will be supported by a group of technical specialists at the Mid-Range Performance Evaluation Center in Dallas, established last year to measure IBM mid-range systems performance, compare it with that of other vendors and provide benchmarking capabilities to illustrate IBM’s ability to meet specific customer requirements.
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