In March 2008, IBM announced there would be one platform for POWER6-based systems running IBM i, AIX, and Linux. And even though the news had been anticipated for some time, 2008 should have gone down in the IT history books and changed the way we all do IT.

The first time I heard a discussion about a single platform was in 2000 or 2001 just after the name change from AS/400 to iSeries. A few of us geeks were talking shop and speculating that eventually there wouldn't be a difference between the systems; partly because we were tinkering with cards and hardware and noticed even back then that they were all too similar, and the only thing separating them was price and a model number.

IBM delivered the official news to i fans in Nashville during COMMON's 2008 annual meeting. The news was exciting and yet left me with a funny feeling that even though IBM may have every intention of getting this right, it somehow would never be able to communicate this huge, powerful, and positive change to the average IT person.

IBM has failed again and again to communicate the super awesomeness of IBM i. IBM has also failed to really leverage AIX and Linux. This inability to market is starting to be a problem.

There are many people in the COMMON community who complain about IBM's ineffective marketing. It's always pointed out in the opening session of COMMON. Every year we all meet in a ballroom and listen to what IBM is up to, then IBM listens to the dedicated users. Then we all go our separate ways, only to return the following year and talk about the same topics we did the previous year.

Sadly, I always walk away knowing that IBM says it's going to improve the marketing behind IBM i, but in the back of my mind I know it isn't going to happen.

Still, this past year was supposed to be different. IBM asked COMMON Nashville attendees to create a POWER equation that defined our needs. Mine was pretty simple: i + AIX + Linux +Power = Ease of Administration. IBM told attendees that Power and IBM i marketing would be everywhere. And yet on the day of the announcement, the only U.S. paper in which you could find it was the Nashville paper. Then IBM i showed up on CNET and Slashdot some three weeks later—it took three long weeks for major technology-based news sites to pick up some of the most exciting news out of IBM in more than 20 years.

Sadly, I think IBM forgot its own POWER equation. It should have been IBM i + AIX + Linux + Proper Marketing = World Domination via Power. Instead, it's been the longest marketing drought I have seen in some time. All the radio ads have dried up, all the inserts in tech publications are hard to understand, and while other vendors market to the entire IT world, IBM seems content to preach to the choir.

We should have seen a year of guerrilla marketing telling the tales of companies that IBM has saved X amount of money by putting all the systems in their data center on one Power platform. We haven't seen any of this. We haven't seen so much as a drop of anything new from IBM as far as marketing the new Power Systems.

If the marketing is out there it's not obvious—and I am looking for it. It's like when you fall in love with a car, and all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. I am in love with IBM i and Power, yet I don't see anyone driving it around.

So as IBM i sales fell in the third quarter of 2008, and IT departments move to Windows because it's the Fisher-Price of operating systems and seems like a simple move, IBM is sitting on its hands hoping the same reliable, 20-year-old customers will keep shopping at the company store for more of the same IBM equipment every time the lease runs out on their current IBM kit. That kind of marketing is called hope, and hope doesn't sell million dollar systems, nor does it pay the bills.

So, What Is IBM to Do?

Marketing has never been IBM's strongpoint. The company builds incredible systems and has some of the world's smartest people working for it, but somehow marketing escapes IBM. I am a fan of the Apple ads, and while I know IBM can't do that type of marketing, I think it could do something to make itself not look like the old, ridged company it's perceived as. IBM needs to put forth a more "common" perception because most people think the company's products are—and for good reason—very expensive.

I applauded the IBM Drive-Thru radio bits, but they were dry and could have been, in the words of Homer Simpson, "More Funny." IBM was onto something and kind of gave up. It's about marketing, but it's about a brand, too. The Dodge commercials that featured the red Dodge vehicles were effective because they ran for almost 15 years and created a brand and an image for Dodge. IBM seems to give up the branding before it has a chance to stick.

IBM has an identity problem: it has no identity. It doesn't have a brand; and as far as the average IT person is concerned, it doesn't have anything to sell, either. I asked around at my office and no one here knows a single product IBM sells. The best answer I got was the ThinkPad, which was part of the PC division IBM sold to Lenovo four years ago. The only people who knew anything about IBM were those whose jobs depended on or were wrapped up in that technology. This is a problem. Some people still don't know that IBM owns the Lotus product portfolio; they still assume Lotus is its own company.

So the short answer is: IBM needs to market like it's about to go under. Someone from IBM's Power Systems group should head over to the Lotus group and see what they're doing to spread the word and keep the community active. IBM needs a Power Systems champion like the Ed Brill of Lotus: someone to go around the world talking about Power, selling Power, and blogging about IBM and Power.

IBM needs a marketing team that understands its customer base and isn't afraid to offend the Windows/Oracle/Sun shops that have wasted money, time, and effort deploying systems that could have all run on one single piece of hardware. IBM needs to take out the war paint, get dirty, and market, brand, and sell Power Systems. It has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

What Does the Community do if IBM doesn't do anything?

Well, if IBM i, AIX, and Linux on Power fail, then we as a community are going to fail, too. We will end up being the OS/2 community that is out there now, still begging IBM for the OS/2 source code, hopeful that someone will grab the defibrillator and bring the OS back to life. Hate to say it guys, but it's gone.

While I don't think IBM midrange systems will fail in the next year or two, I do think that over time the users will start thinking about long-term career paths.

COMMON is the best community I have been involved in during a long length of time. I think as a community we are successful and bright. I don't know whether there is a COMMON equivalent in the AIX group of users, but IBM should be thinking long and hard about merging the two comminutes and bringing into it the key players from the Linux community, too, like Red Hat and Novell. What an awesome convention that would be with IBM i users, i Developers, IBM pros, AIX gurus and Linux experts from all over the place, all talking about OSes and Power hardware. My mind is a flutter with how euphoric that would be. To move forward the communities—like the platforms—need to find common ground. We need our Lotusphere, and if COMMON the users group can't do it, then IBM needs to, and fast.

In the end we are just people threaded together by a common bond: Power. Power hardware is the single strand that makes us similar, and IBM knows it. I only hope IBM can present the things we all have in common, bring the Power community together, and in the end show the IT world there is value in what IBM is doing and it is good for IT.

IBM, I beg you to do what does not make sense to you: brand, advertise, and market the Power Systems, and while you are doing that consider bringing all of us into the same room and forming a Power community. I think the rest will sort itself out.

David Vasta has worked in IT since 1990. During this time he has been active in COMMON and worked with many platforms and technologies. Currently, David is the Lotus Notes administrative team lead of the North and South American continents for Atlas Copco, based in Rock Hill, S.C.