Brian and Charles have the interests of the user in mind in this argument and it would seem obvious that the vendor, IBM, and its sales channels would too. So... what is wrong with our thinking or theirs. The "Knowledge is Power" argument is really "Knowledge is Money". I invite you to correct this syllogism if you see an error. IBM wants to sell U2 (Are we sure of that?), Vars do all of the selling for IBM making money for IBM. (Do they?) Vars want to sell both the IBM products and their own services which depend on knowledge. Vars are the competition for the independent consultant who is also in the knowledge business. But, the Independent consultants never send money to IBM! Who will IBM want to keep happy? To win access to the knowledge you must find a way to put money in the pockets of Big Blue... or threaten to remove current and future income streams. Knowledge is power, but power is also in unions and buyer's groups if you take the path of force. On the other had, diplomacy might win the day if IBM can see some way to make more money selling U2 software through Independents, or by bundling it with hardware, or by giving it away and selling their own services (we could be sub-contractors to IBM). The net-net is that IBM's divisions have to make their numbers... or the guy/gal at the top gets the ax. If what you want adds to IBM's income or keeps it from drying up, you win. If not... well, the Bard said it better that I can, "...it is a tale... ...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Patrick Williams, President American Computer Technics, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
This isn't really a function of a user group, is it? It's solely an individual user/VAR/IBM function, and I firmly believe the VAR has some rights to preclude access if the VAR deems it prudent..... Why ? The end user is buying the product - and they should have access to make full use of it. That sort of protectiveness just masks a laziness on the part o f the VAR: are they worried their users might end up knowing more than they do, or start looking at what their VARs are actually supplying in terms of systems and service too closely? If the VARs are really adding value, they won't have anything to fear. If they aren't - they should get off their backsides and start doing so. The worst outcome is the 'little knowledge' syndrome, where users end up catchi ng bits and pieces from other sources without having access to the background i nformation to apply it safely. If I buy an SQL Server based application, I can still get to the huge Microsoft knowledge base. It's that kind of dark-ages thinking that holds us all back. Brian ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
