On Friday, January 15, 1999 8:47 AM, Wirt Atmar [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
wrote:
> Denys writes:
>
> > Now, I look at the overall contents and tenor of this ad and I say to
> >  myself, hum, replace "S/390" with "HP 3000", "IBM" with "HP" and
"three
> >  decades of transformation" with "25 years of transformation" and
voila, a
> >  great ad.
> >
> >  Nah, it will never happen.
>
> That's probably true. If HP did that, IBM would have a cow.
>
> Lawyers, you know.
>
> However, I suspect that the message won't be lost on owners of other
mainframe
> systems, either. The meeting will still be called and the same questions
will
> asked. And the people that run the HP3000s should be able to say "yes" to
all
> the same questions.
>
> IBM is doing us all a favor by paying to help change the mindset.
>
> Wirt Atmar
This is interesting for a lot of reasons.  For computer manufacturers there
seem to be at least three responses to what is happening in the computer
business; 1) hide your head in the sand and pretend it's not happening, 2)
join the crowd, and 3) emphasize your strengths.

Digital practised the hide your head in the sand strategy in the early days
of PC's and UNIX both.  They then figured Alpha would save them and adopted
a variation of emphasize your strengths.  Finally they did a variation of
join the crowe and emphasize your strengths - Alpha and NT.

HP to until receintly did the join the crowd thing with first UNIX, then
Novell and now NT, it worked.  In the meantime they forgot about MPE, their
strength.  It will be interesting to see what happens now that UNIX is
maturing what they'll do about that strong product line.  If they are
consistent, they'll abandon it and go to Linux.

IBM is now doing a combination of joining the UNIX, NT, Linux crowd.
 However, all along they have never abandoned the MVS and AS/400 product
lines.  They have consistently emphasized their strengths.

What's the best strategy.  I think the IBM strategy is the best one.  You
don't have to abandon what's good about your product line to show that you
can follow the industry analyst recommendations (crowd).  They are
different markets.  This is something that CSY seems to have known for some
time and through the leadership of Harry and Winston, they are starting to
show the world that this is true.  They may be giving classes in this sort
of thinking to the HP-UX types in short order.  NT is kicking butt and just
wait till you see what happens with Linux.

Charles Finley
OESC
(310) 957-2200