As Glenn and then Joe point out, marketing hype sells, deservedly so or
not. IBM focuses its AS400 marketing on the system's capabilities that
meet a perceived market need. They don't use the HP approach of "It's
the same old thing only with new bells and whistles that are currently
in vogue and so we kind of added some stuff to spruce it up so maybe
you'll still buy just a few so that maybe we can get a couple of more
years out of it but it's still the same old great proprietary legacy
system".  IBM says, "It's a web server." "It's a Java server." It's an
enterprise server." "It's an electronic commerce server."  Clear,
concise, forward positioning messages uncluttered with apologies to the
past. Nothing is being taken away, just messages to the marketplace
point.

Speaking of marketing, many have raved on the "Orange" ads, but I
especially liked the "internet=catch, internet=hp" ads that have
appeared -- who says HP can't sell cold dead fish.

Paul Dorius
eXegeSys, Inc.
(801)538-0222
eRP on MPE, better than ERP on NT