While Microsoft Corp. gathered industry partners for its Midrange Alliance Program, IBM Corp. began running ads about the iSeries on the television shows Lost and Boston Legal during the holiday season, much to the delight of some iSeries users.

"I was thrilled to see that kind of marketing," said Roxanne Reynolds-Lair, CIO at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. She cited the ads as evidence that IBM is listening to its users.

At an iSeries user conference in October, some attendees questioned IBM"s long-term support for the midrange line. Users expressed fears that if IBM really wasn"t trying to sell the iSeries, the installed base of about 240,000 users would shrink, as would the demand for iSeries-specific expertise such as RPG programming skills.

At the October conference, which was held by Common, the Chicago-based user group, IBM officials said they were working on a plan to boost awareness of the iSeries line and increase support for the systems by independent software vendors.

The new TV ads have been "very reassuring to the iSeries community," said Beverly Russell, IT director at E.D. Smith & Sons Ltd., a food products manufacturer in Winona, Ontario. Russell said users have been trying to get IBM to do that kind of marketing for years.

"That was refreshing to see," agreed Mark Bondurant, vice president of IT at CBK. "It"s a little step. I want to see a lot more."

Bondurant added that he has been concerned about the long-term prospects for the iSeries, which debuted in 1988 as the AS/400.

"If you"re not putting any marketing money behind the product, it doesn"t matter how good it is," he said. "All you"re going to do is end up riding your existing customer base until it dwindles down."

Identity crisis

Tony Canty, vice president of information systems and accounting at Labatt Food Service, said that there are too many iSeries installations worldwide for IBM "to walk away from it." But Canty added that he wishes IBM had thought twice before renaming the product.

"They made a big marketing mistake when they went from AS/400 to iSeries," he said. "Nobody knows what the hell the iSeries is."

IBM said the TV ads are only part of what it"s doing to improve the image of the iSeries and help users of the systems. Last year, the company invested a total of US$500 million in the iSeries line, according to IBM officials. They also cited its efforts to attract new software vendors, which could drive additional hardware purchases.

That was the case for Cornhusker Bank in Lincoln, Neb., which installed Information Technology Inc."s banking software on an iSeries system last year. ITI, which is also based in Lincoln, began offering its applications on the iSeries during 2004. It also supports Unisys Corp."s ClearPath mainframes.

Ken Ward, Cornhusker"s executive vice president in charge of operations, said that before making a final decision on the hardware, bank officials talked with some iSeries users, who gave positive reviews of the product. "We just felt fairly comfortable with it," he said.

Computerworld reporter Carol Sliwa contributed to this story.