Hi Dawn Just a brief response to your posting.
Being based in South Africa, where we sometimes seem to feel like the lost children of the U2 community, we tend to get the opposite feeling to what you are putting across. We recently had Susie Siegesmund out here in South Africa and part of the reason for her visit was to help promote the growth of the local U2 market. She has in the past been very instrumental in assisting us in this and still shows a huge commitment to doing so. This has particularly been in the small user end of the market. I do feel that where the problem may come in is in the lack of knowledge by the rest of IBM about the U2 products and that they therefore tend to push people towards something they know. I feel the Incubator Program is a very good idea, and although IBM may have legal issues to work around, I do not see them being insurmountable, but rather, based on my previous experience with the IBM U2 team, would expect them to assist as much as possible. Thanks Kurt Neumann -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dawn Wolthuis Sent: 11 May 2007 08:28 AM To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] Incubator - News from the board On 5/10/07, Dave Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Chuck, > > <Stepping up on my soap box> I suspect I'll end up on mine before this post is done, so I might as well say so up front too. I have no reason to believe that IBM is eager to attract end-customers (non-VARs) to U2 and almost as little reason to believe that they want to put any effort into attracting new VARs. Even those converting from other Pick vendors (D3, jBASE, Revelation, OpenQM, UniVision) might be of only ho-hum interest unless they are huge (and I think IBM knows whether they have most of the huge ones already or not). So, if the U2UG is trying to address any of those audiences, I am not at all convinced that the support needed to "close the deal" with anyone downloading the PE edition, however souped up it might be, will be there. > > There are no magazines I read that have Ads for IBM products, including DB2, that give me any hint that IBM would like me to use U2 for any new projects (others might be seeing such advertising, but it isn't in front of me). I made the decision not to beg IBM to market to me. > > So, if the U2UG is going to do something very cool like what has been suggested for this Incubator, you might also want to know who it is that IBM is passionate about bringing into the U2 fold. I suspect, unless I see evidence to the contrary, that their target group, the group for which they will spend money, are the prospective customers of existing VARs, with their investments being in existing VARs, period (or very close to "period"). Those are not, in general, folks who need the PE edition as a sales tool--their VAR will get it all working for them. ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
