From: cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Andrew M. Cohill)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: IBM:  still asleep at the wheel
Date: 1 Oct 92 21:21:10 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Fire in the Mountain

Back in July, we decided that we wanted the OS/2 TCP/IP base kit and the
NFS extensions.  We thought that because you could get OS/2 delivered
overnight, it should be a snap to get these extensions.

If you want to read no further, the short version is we are still
waiting....

We have a 3090 and a 3084 here as well as hell of a lot of other IBM
stuff, so I called our IBM sales rep to get the part numbers and prices.
What a mistake that was.  It's been so long that I can't remember the
conversation clearly, except my impression was that he could barely
spell OS/2, much less help me get software for it.  He gave me a long
tale of woe about why they couldn't ship it the same way they ship the
base OS.  He did not know what I was talking about, and really seemed to
care less.

I think that the commission is so low that these blue suit/gold watch
guys really don't give a damn;  after all, we were talking less than
$200 per item.  Anyway, I poked around and found one of the two or three
thousand 800 numbers IBM has, and called them.  After being referred
twice to different numbers, I finally got someone who was familiar with
the products, and they gave part numbers and prices.  I could not order
over the phone, so I fired off a P.O. to our trusty local sales office.

They shot it right back with note saying the numbers were wrong, and of
course, did not bother to inquire about what it was we really wanted.
They just rejected the PO and let it drop there.

So I called  a few more 800 numbers, and finally discoved the IBM fax
line that lets you order product literature and faxes it back to you,
and actually got real info:  part numbers, prices, and yet another 800
number to call.  So I called the 800 number again and asked for the
educational price, got it, and found yet again I could not mail order
the darn stuff, even though IBM obviously has a distribution system in
place to do that.

So I fired off another P.O. to our local office.  Waited about six
weeks, and two days ago the NFS extensions show up, but no base kit.  So
I ask and found out that the local sales office canceled that part of
the order again.  They did not bother to verify the part number this
time, they just assumed I wanted OS/2, and told our secretary to get it
through our bookstore.   Nice guy.  How thoughtfully arrogant of him to
assume that he knew better than I (an actual OS/2 user) what I wanted.
It was an especially nice touch to not bother calling me to check on
what I wanted not once but twice.

So he has apparently decided that I'm just a pesky, no-commission OS/2
nerd that is not worth his time.  So when the bid for $50,000 for the
three Unix workstations I need goes out, I'm going to try damn hard to
get H-P equipment.

And I have to now re-submit my P.O. for a *third* time, and if this guy
does not kick it back again, I'll have to wait six *more* weeks to get one
lousy disk of software.  Oh, and in the past six weeks we have received
over 40 high density disks of *free*, unsolicited  upgrades and beta 
OS/2 software from IBM.  It is no wonder this company is losing money;
they spend a fortune giving away free stuff and actually turn away real
orders for real goods--can't be bothered.

They just don't get it.  Any Mac, DOS, or NeXT software I want I can get
overnight from my mail order house of choice.  IBM wants people to use
OS/2, but has made it so difficult to do so that Windows NT looks better
every day.  And the real shame is that as far as I can tell, OS/2 is a
better product.  If it fails, it will be because IBM marketing is so
screwed up, so utterly out of touch with what everyone else is doing, so
miserably inefficient, so despicably arrogant in their ignorance, and so
pathetically inept.


-- 
|          ...we have to look for routes of power our teachers never       
|              imagined, or were encouraged to avoid.   T. Pynchon          
|                    
|Andrew Cohill        cohill@vtserf.cc.vt.edu            VPI&SU                                                  
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc