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A Note from Steve Early - Business Unit Executive, System z Software Channel Sales
I'd like
to offer my personal thanks to each of you for your efforts in selling IBM System z software tools and platform currency
in 2008. Overall, we had a good year in a very difficult and challenging environment. As might be expected, results
varied around the world:
- Business Partners in Japan delivered outstanding results, with involvement in a
number of key opportunities and delivering triple-digit growth for the year.
- The Asia Pacific team, in its first
full year working with our TCI channel program, generated positive business results -- particularly during the second half
of the year -- and finished above target with year-to-year growth.
- The North American team had a strong first
three quarters of the year before being impacted by the slowing economy. Despite the challenges, the team finished
above target for the year,
- Europe had a very challenging year, but there were bright spots. Southwestern Europe
saw revenue grow 10%, year-to-year, with renewed strength in France and Belgium, while Northeastern Europe saw year-to-year
growth in the UK and Ireland region.
We now have a terrific set of materials available on PartnerWorld
to support your sales and marketing efforts. Multiple training options have been consolidated and made available through
the PartnerWorld site, including the new z101 and virtual System z Software Top Gun classes (see Enablement below).
Brand specialization will be critical to us all this year. Expect cross-industry System z Software sales reps working
in investment territories to seek out Business Partners with solid brand skills with which to team and implement strategic
solutions. Make sure to include brand enablement, particularly attendance at brand industry events, in your 2009 plans.
Lastly, customers are likely to be more deliberate in their decision-making as the economy tightens further.
You have a rich portfolio of System z Software solutions to offer your customers, and it's likely they will want to see how
these solutions work before making decisions. Be sure to consider using IBM demonstration systems to get hands-on experience
with the tools and demonstrate their capabilities to your customers.
Take advantage of the resources available
to you, and let's get off to a fast start in 2009!
Steve
In this issue
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A Note from Eric Baxley - Director, System z Software Marketing I'd like to talk to you about our
new Myth vs. Truth campaign. In December, we sent out a "teaser" email providing a sneak
preview to this campaign which officially launches in 1Q 2009. This email was delivered to 20,560 senior IT executives representing
many IBM System z accounts throughout the US. The email links to a provocative movie trailer-like video designed to pique
interest and prep the market for the full campaign. The 1Q 2009 campaign will feature a variety of interactive tactics;
a full-featured, uniquely entertaining Web experience; and an expanded set of themed landing pages on ibm.com with more serious value messaging.
Myth vs. Truth -
campaign strategy
This joint SWG and STG campaign represents a primary marketing approach we are employing
to break through the misperceptions in the market today regarding the mainframe. The objective is to motivate a specific
target audience to react to System z software demand generation tactics. To overcome this, Myth vs. Truth uses a very
different look and feel from what this audience usually expects to see from mainframe marketing, something intriguing enough
to prompt them to learn more (click one more link, etc.).
Our first rollout in 2009 will be to North America,
and we will work with the rest of the geographies to determine the adjustments necessary for particular cultures/markets;
we will also further define ways to tie in with Smarter Planet. As we proceed with the campaign, we will keep you up
to date on our efforts.
Enjoy the new campaign - Eric
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Top Stories
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Modern Application Development with Web 2.0 using Rational and WebSphere for System z
To adopt an effective modernization approach, you must first overcome the following challenges in your IT organization: - Build
the IT delivery solutions needed to create and integrate existing applications with Web 2.0 interfaces
- Enable existing
and new IT staff to leverage modern architectures and technologies
- Enhance team collaboration and productivity
- Free
up maintenance budgets for new development
Register below for any of the following locations / dates. NOTE
to our BUSINESS PARTNERS - please invite your customers and leverage this event to qualify leads and close business! Date
Location Tuesday, February 3
Chicago, IL Thursday, February 5 El Segundo / Costa
Mesa, CA Thursday, February 19 Seattle, WA Tuesday,
February 24 Detroit / Southfield, MI Tuesday, March 10
Kansas City, MO
Register
here
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Now available - System z10 Business Class Wallchart
The System z10 Business Class Wallchart is now available for order. IBM WW will cover the cost of printing --
you are only responsible for shipping. Performance data is included. A PDF is available for viewing before you order.
Click
here to order
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New Common Sense series from System z Competitive Office
COMMON SENSE: WHAT IT IS--With mounting competition during global financial crisis, System z urges
you to deliver to your customers the appropriate editions of a "new" handout series called COMMON SENSE.
There are currently six editions dealing with System z advantages in: - Linux/Virtualization,
- Cost
of Ownership,
- Ultimate Value during crisis,
- Real thing versus imitation,
- HP
Myth versus z compelling Facts,
- and Superior System z Security.
Each two page
piece is designed to be read in about seven minutes.
WHAT TO DO WITH COMMON SENSE--email or print out and hand deliver
to your customer, whether he/she is new to Mainframes or has z footprint and is considering a) unplugging it, or b) buying
"another." Start a conversation with COMMON SENSE, as it is written to be approachable. Each edition
has a call to action, which you should ask your client to take.
Click
here to access the System z Competitive Sales Kit & Common Sense Materials
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Updated Software Cross Sell Reference Guide
The volume and variety of IBM's software offerings often present a daunting challenge in selling IBM software. Keeping
track of product name changes and the relationships between products can be quite difficult. This resource can help you with
this challenge. The IBM Software Group Cross Sell Reference Guide provides a brief description of
all IBM Software Group (SWG) products and describes how they relate to each other. This information helps software sellers
and solution architects better understand all available IBM software offerings as well as promote cross selling within and
between software brands, based on IBM products the customer has already purchased or is considering purchasing. Embedded
links are included to provide you with more detailed information about products. Clicking on the title of a product entry
will launch a browser window to the product's home page. The guide is valuable to all IBM software sellers as well as IBM
Business Partners.
Click
here to acess the Reference Guide
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System z MLC GPA Education and Q&A
IBM is announcing price increases in the Monthly License Charges (MLC)
for selected System z, eServer zSeries, and S/390 programs and their
features. This is a Worldwide General Price Action (GPA) including all
countries and select SWG and STG System z MLC products.
The effective date is 1 April 2009 for most locations. zOTC
and associated S&S products are not included, and the previously
announced Passport Advantage GPA effective 1 January 2009 is not
impacted.
Click
here to learn more
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Events
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System z Software Enablement
- Tivoli Think Thursday - Improve Service Availability
- Join us on Thursday, February
5th at 10:00am Central, for a webcast and learn how to improve Service Availability through automated dependency discovery
and configuration auditing.
- All customers have applications with interdependencies and few understand them.
In addition, unplanned changes can be the key root cause for reductions in Service availability. Tivoli's Application
Dependency Discovery Manager (TADDM) provides a unique solution to identify application availability issues resulting from
unknown or misunderstood dependencies and configuration drift from unplanned change. Use TADDM to do both reactive
and proactive impact assessment and improve your Service availability. IBM provides the most comprehensive end-to-end
solution in this multi million dollar market and invites you to understand the value this tool can provide.
- Enroll
here
- Improving your TCO by moving to Linux on System z
- 1/2 day
(no charge) - open to customers, business partners and IBMers
- Kansas City, MO February 3, 2009
- Charlotte,
NC February 10, 2009
- Learn how using the mainframe to consolidate Linux workloads can help give you a more
flexible, cost-efficient environment.
- Details
and to register
- Technical Briefing - System z Skills Update: Modernizing and
Optimizing the Mainframe
- April 28: 1/2 Day in Austin, TX (no charge)
- Open to customers,
business partners and IBMers
- This briefing provides an in-depth look at a System z environment today and at some
of the challenges and opportunities facing enterprise IT. We will discuss the skills, tools, and techniques necessary to
build Web-based and service-oriented environments; how new techniques of virtualization enable hardware and software consolidation;
simplification of administration; and overall cost savings.
- Details
and to register
- Application Integration for CICS and IMS applications in a Smart
SOA
- March 5: 1/2 Day in Dallas, TX (no charge)
- Open to customers, business partners
and IBMers
- Learn how your mainframe can be used to integrate applications across platforms, existing CICS and IMS
apps and new workloads, to support a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
- Details
and to register
- Upcoming System z Software Top Gun classes in 2009: Schedule is still being defined for 2009, check out
the System z Software Top Gun site for more information.
- IBM
TGVL: System z Software Foundation
- February 3-6, 2009
- Do you need high quality, role based,
live, interactive sales education? Is travel an issue for you? Then TOP GUN Virtual Learning (TGVL) may be just
what you need! The TOP GUN team has completely re-architected the well-known, face-to-face TOP GUN classes to adapt
to the virtual environment!!
More
System z Software Enablement
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Upcoming Teleconferences
Open to Business Partners, customers and IBMers
- Good-bye IMS SYSGEN for databases, programs,
routing codes and transactions -- Hello IMS Dynamic Resource Definition
- Teleconference:
February 3, 2009
- In this teleconference we’ll discuss the commands for building one or more of database, program,
routing code, or transaction resource definitions. We will discuss the commands that are used to port these resource definitions
from one IMS system to another. We will also discuss the new offline utilities that are used to manage and interpret these
resource definitions.
- To register
- Let pureQuery improve the quality of service and reduce
costs for WebSphere and DB2 applications
- Teleconference: February 4, 2009
- Join
us for this complimentary teleconference to learn more about adding IBM Data Studio pureQuery to your WebSphere Application
Server for z/OS environment. It can help reduce costs, improve quality of service, enhance security and improve productivity
and manageability for your Java applications.
- With Data Studio pureQuery, you can get more from
z/OS and offload more function to zIIP or zAPP processors to lower software costs. In this ession, we'll discuss how
it makes database performance more predictable while lowering security exposures. The result is improved development
productivity and effective collaboration between developers and DBAs - without changing your Java application.
- Join us to see how it's done
- z/OS Problem Determination Tools for Your
SOA Environment
- February 18: 11:00am est
- Deploying a service oriented architecture (SOA)
is an effective way for a business to become more agile while efficiently integrating existing information systems to support
new applications and business requirements. Many organizations that are moving to a SOA have an existing legacy infrastructure
running on IBM’s System z. With the vast number of existing applications running on the IBM System z platform, it only
makes sense that System z applications can be a big part of the move to SOA. System z tools such as IBM Problem Determination
Tools help you easily modernize existing applications and transform your environment into a SOA infrastructure.
- In
this teleconference we will discuss:
- ystem z as the foundational platform for your SOA environment
- Business
challenges faced by development and testing teams responsible for reusing and creating applications
- How IBM Problem
Determination tools can help the development and testing of your SOA
- Our customers utilizing these solutions to help
increase ROI
- Click here to Register
View
all upcoming teleconferences
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© International Business Machines Corporation 2008. All rights reserved.
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Pulse 2009 registration is open
- Plan to attend
the complimentary IBM
Tivoli Business Partner Summit: Accelerating Business
Partner Growth. We are pleased to announce that the IBM Tivoli Business Partner Summit will
include the following speakers in the General Session:
- Al Zollar, General Manager, Tivoli Software
- Laura Sanders, Vice President of Development, Tivoli Software
- Joao Perez, Vice President of World Wide Sales, Tivoli Software
- Stephen Stokes, Analyst Guest Speaker from AMR
- View the latest
agenda details for the IBM
Tivoli Business Partner Summit
Impact 2009
Join us at IMPACT 2009 - May 3-8 in Las Vegas. The Smart SOA approach is about achieving smarter business outcomes
and this year's elite event provides an ideal venue to help you attain your business goals.
Business
Partner Sponsorships: Check out the exciting Impact 2009 Sponsorships and new marketing Promotional Opportunities
to help you get the most out of your conference experience.
Rational Software Conference 2009
Join us and the 4000+ Rational customers, Business Partners, and industry experts! Learn from any of the 300+ technical
sessions; measure your skills through free TSM and/or Certification exams. Become a sponsor - generate sales leads
and position your company as a strong IBM Rational partner and a thought leader!
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