I've worked for IBM 30 years this month and collectively, we have never, and no doubt, will never, have the first clue how to sell to SMBs. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. And this ain't it. Once again.

you know I don't think I have ever read a comment on an article that just shot it down without a trace this is that comment thank you.

Many of us with experience of IBM in the past have seen the problems caused by organising sales along product lines. The interests of those selling mainframes was often directly in opposition to those selling competing AIX/Power based systems. What large customers wanted was the best solution - often what came up was something close to two competing bids from different teams rather than a complementary story. Often this split of self-interest was echoed in the structures of their customer's IT departments. The mainframe camp vs the UNIX camp later to be followed by the Windows camp (at which both the previous groups would sneer).

It's nothing like as bad now, but there are still shadows of these arguments (like Z-Linux vs x86 Linux issue still rumbles on in many IT departments).

Well, they never seemed expensive at the time of purchase, the clue was usually in the quote where there was a line saying "IBM Services, 30 days included".... which would grow to 60 days.... then 90 days.... then six months, if you were lucky! By this point, even if the salesbod had dropped their pants on the systems, they would be laughing all the way to the bank on all the additional consultancy necsessary to get that "seamless" integration working.

Organising sales teams along product lines is a curse with all the major vendors, I'll be interested to see if the IBM changes make a difference as the other vendors will likely follow suit, which means more new salesbods to fleece for freebies.... ;)

There are always going to be good experiences and bad experiences - one of the posts here looks like a bad one, however, I have to say that you ca't just look at the cost of a piece of equipment and say "no way too expensive for me" without looking at what it can do. If you use it right it delivers great value - if you don't - well you may as well have bought a PC.