iSeries conference points to 3000’s history

COMMON Denver meeting harks back to 3000’s high-water days

The setting on the Convention Center stage recalled HP user conferences of a decade earlier: a dozen of the vendor’s managers anxiously awaiting questions from a crowd of more than 1,500 customers, while more than 700 sessions lay spread out before the next four days. Just minutes earlier at the latest conference of the COMMON Users Group for IBM iSeries and AS/400 customers, the vendor’s chief scientist had explained why the HP 3000 was a model for Big Blue — and why Dr. Frank Soltis believes the 3000 is going away.

The shift to Intel’s new Itanium technology “has forced some vendors to abandon excellent systems,” Soltis said in his first keynote speech of the week, “and the prime example of that is the HP 3000.”

iSeries General Manager Buell Duncan assembled the top IBM managers to take questions from the COMMON show floor

Soltis was addressing a ballroom full of managers running iSeries systems, comparing IBM’s investment in its proprietary technology to HP’s expenditures. Soltis, who designed the fundamental architecture for the AS/400 and acts as chief technical spokesman for IBM’s iSeries efforts, told COMMON’s attendees they ought to feel lucky in comparison.

The 3000, Soltis said, “was our biggest competitor in the early and mid-1990s. We looked to them to see what they were doing that got their customer satisfaction so high. We borrowed some things to get our satisfaction as high as it is today. And there’s a major difference between the two companies. HP decided not to move into new application areas with the 3000. That box is now going away.”

If IBM had not decided to move the iSeries and AS/400 into new application areas, Soltis said, “it too would be in the process of going away. But it’s not, because IBM is making the investment in this platform. The next time someone says to you that the iSeries is just a new name for the AS/400, would you set the record straight?”

A bigger wave

The bravado of a sales tout, delivered by a technical expert from the system vendor to a room crowded with customers, brought back memories of HP user conferences of years past. IBM likes to point out that 500,000 AS/400 and iSeries systems are in active use, a momentum the HP 3000 never reached. There’s enough interest in the system to mount two North American user conferences a year, each with more than 1,500 paid attendees and 100 exhibit spaces.

Numbers in that range represent a close match to what Interex is able to marshal in its annual North American conference, but that HP World show draws off customers from Unix, Windows and now Digital and Compaq customer bases. COMMON attendees and presenters focused only on IBM’s bundled alternative to the HP 3000, with session tracks that ran as late as 7:30PM for three nights. After the formal education wrapped up, attendees crowded into the COMMON User Discussion Socials, or CUDS, for free soft drinks and $1 beers to network and trade tips on their systems.

Chief Scientist Dr. Frank Soltis compared the HP 3000 to the iSeries in his keynote

Barbara Baase, an IS Manager from DuroLast Roofing in Saginaw, Mich., said going to COMMON made her more confident about her platform’s future. DuroLast uses the MAPICS application in its manufacture and assembly of roofing materials for contractors and supply houses, and Baase said she’s had her doubts about how long the AS/400 might hold out — while she’d stopped going to COMMON shows.

“About a year ago I could stop worrying about the AS/400,” she said, using the old name for the system IBM prefers to call the iSeries. “By calling it the iSeries, it means it’s just another eServer to IBM” rather than a boutique computer line in danger of being cancelled.

Facing the users

COMMON’s organization is well-wedded to the vendor, according to some longtime members, but the user group still gets to call its own shots about its activities in conferences. For 45 minutes a host of IBM executives took questions live from customers, with no pre-submitted queries at the ready. For the most part the questions hovered around issues with support contracts, how difficult the Websphere Web suite is to use and configure, and pricing gaps in the iSeries system lineup.

Attendees crowded into the Town Hall meeting that started the conference at 8AM, with the questions coming after a presentation by retail showcase customer Things Remembered and Soltis’ speech. One question, which drew ample applause in from the crowd, covered the interactive threshold charges IBM collects for 5250 green screen application use. “It drives me crazy,” one customer said. “Is there a way to get rid of it totally, or set something to limit an interactive user to 1 or 2 percent, so I know I’m not going to exceed the threshold and penalize everybody on the box?”

Buell Duncan, the IBM general manager of the iSeries business, responded that the vendor is “working on that with GreenStreak, a different approach to interactive pricing. We have to take a different approach. Our team is working feverishly on this, and stay tuned.”

Like any computer platform, even the HP 3000 had some former customers among the attendees. “Before I became an IBM supporter I was an HP man,” one customer said from the microphone without identifying himself. “They’re awesome machines. When I went to the System 38 and 400, I was impressed with the simplicity compared to HP.” The customer said he’s been on the iSeries since 1989, but added that “I encountered a very uncomfortable feeling determining what Websphere tools fit my environment.”

IBM’s Duncan directed another manager to address the customer’s problems, because as [IBM’s eServer VP Bill] Zeitler says, the money’s just lying on the ground. We’ve just got to figure out a more effective way to pick it up.”

Duncan promised that IBM would be reaching into its customer base of iSeries users more often and more directly. The vendor will be personally contacting each of its 250,000 customers using the system once every quarter, Duncan said, “because you’re not going to sell a lot unless you’re talking to your customers.”

Those customers at the Town Meeting had obviously been pressing IBM to spread the word about the iSeries, since one manager brought a copy of a newspaper ad to show the crowd. The ad covered the Domino messaging software for the system, but drew applause anyway.

Al Barsa of Barsa Consulting Group gave the first customer response from the crowd, apparently a tradition in the group’s meetings, by starting with a statement that “I’m giving up on the iSeries.” He added quickly that he wasn’t giving up on OS400, the server’s operating system, calling the V5R2 version “an awesome release” or the system hardware. “Nobody knows the name the iSeries. Everybody calls it AS/400. Informed sources tell me the code name for iSeries marketing is The Cone of Silence.”

IBM executives, including brand-new VP of marketing Cecilia Marise, took the jabs good-naturedly. But making the world aware of the iSeries advantage seemed a greater problem than many others voiced during the Town Hall meeting. IBM had no problems airing the issues before the press.

The same, yet different

Chief Scientist Soltis said he’d attended an Interex user conference in San Francisco years ago, “when the 3000 was up here, and we were down there. We addressed the areas where we could see what HP was doing to make the 3000 customers satisfied.”

In much the same way, the COMMON group appeared to have made some improvements on the user group meeting model, while retaining basics which Interex has let drift. The conference hall carried postings for COMMON volunteer positions needing to be filled, included a volunteers desk, and the meeting was staffed with many volunteers rather than paid staff. HP 3000 user conferences of a decade ago and earlier had much more volunteer involvement.

User group standbys like meals were different, too. COMMON didn’t break for lunch at Denver, but simply ran sessions straight through and kept its show floor open throughout the day. Lunch was available on the edge of the show floor for a fee throughout the day, giving attendees more flexibility and the user group a way to pack in hundreds of talks a day. Choosing from the talks could be simplified by following among nearly 50 Focused Education Roadmaps, programs that specified six to eight sessions with optional electives.

Between the CUDS socials and an evening banquet, attendees had networking functions to cap very full days of training. COMMON also offered details on its next conference while users were still in Denver, and has conference dates and cities planned into 2006.

Another improvement was awarding talks with Bronze, Silver or Gold rankings, based on attendee feedback, to help users choose which sessions to attend. Of the 720 sessions, 170 were offered for the first time, and application providers MAPICS and J.D. Edwards offered 19 app-specific training sessions.

COMMON refreshes its $1,395 conferences twice a year, but the feeling coming from the Denver center seemed to flow from an older part of the IT industry. A close-knit group of customers educated themselves on unique technology, while celebrating success with their servers.