Lunch, Sort Of, with Mark Shearer, iSeries GM

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

When you are an IT manager working for a manufacturer, distributor, financial services, or other kind of company that uses one or another platform, you usually do not get high-level access to the general managers who run the businesses that provide your platforms. Like many of you, I spend quite a bit of time criticizing IT suppliers--sometimes as a customer, usually as an analyst--but it is important to remember that businesses are made of people and, in addition to making money, are made to support people.

Last week, I went to the big System z9 mainframe announcement that IBM hosted at the W Hotel in midtown Manhattan. I had already been briefed about the System z9 announcements a week earlier because IT Jungle was launching a new newsletter, Big Iron. I don't claim to understand why IBM does what it does, but I think the fact that IT Jungle was going to be giving the mainframe (both its own zSeries machines as well as gear from Unisys and a few clone alternatives) its own spotlight played in our favor in getting the kind of briefings that are usually reserved for the general business press only. It was an interesting announcement, and I look forward to providing in-depth coverage on the mainframe as we grow Big Iron from its humble beginnings. While I certainly went to the System z9 announcement to hear what Big Blue would say about the new server, I had other motives. Basically, I went downtown to see Mark Shearer, general manager of the iSeries, and Adalio Sanchez, general manager of the pSeries. If he had a chance, I was slotted to talk to Erich Clementi, the general manager of the zSeries division, too.

I was in something of a good mood on July 26, the day of the IBM announcement, because that day marked the beginning of our publishing company's fifth year. Four years ago, in the wake of the collapse of the former Midrange Computing, I had a few thousand dollars, a dream, a strong desire to make a job for myself in a pretty terrible IT publishing market, an equally strong desire to provide jobs for my colleagues, and a skill (well, maybe not . . . ) in IT journalism and analysis that wasn't much good in other areas. My colleagues and I have worked hard to get IT Jungle to where it is today, and we are working hard to improve the content that we deliver. I was also in a good mood because I got to commute downtown with my wife, who works in the Met Life building above Grand Central Station, and after the event I knew I was going to see her for lunch. I am not big on commuting, but my wife is my favorite person on the planet and I never get to have lunch with her. Even after 10 years of being together, she is still my favorite person on the planet; she is demonstrably fond of me, too. I always was a swan for things I love--I have been writing about the AS/400 since July 1989, and I have no intention of stopping, just as an example--so that stands to reason concerning me. I cannot explain my wife's reaction to me, but I try not to mess with a good thing.

Going into a big IBM event in a good mood does not in any way cloud my critical analysis of what is going on around me. These events are nearly impossible to produce, there is not enough time to explain in detail what is being announced, and the whole process is exhausting for everyone involved. All I know is that I am glad that I am not responsible for putting them on.

The demo center in the hotel was blazing hot, and everyone complained about that to a certain comic effect. Then 120 journalists were moved into an air-conditioned room that was as cold as a meat locker, which felt good for the first hour but was a bit tough for the second hour. When one IBMer asked me about the event, I responded genuinely, saying that it was a bit like going to church. I had to sit in my seat, pay attention to the sermons, and not fidget or in any way interrupt the ceremonies. (I'm a Type A wombat, so sitting still is actually physically painful to me.) I added that the difference was that in church I was never required to take notes, nor would I be lauded or criticized for the sermon I wrote based on the sermons I had just heard. I don't think that was the answer the IBMer was looking for, and so I went further and explained that I liked big iron and I was very happy to have talked to the development manager for the System z9, Mark Anzani. He's a hard-core hardware nut, and I like that, I explained. That drew a smile at least.

Immediately after the two-hour press event and before I talked to Sanchez, I sat down in the meat locker to talk to Shearer. Quoting interrupts the flow of thinking for both interviewer and interviewee, so I didn't feel like taking down quotes because I just wanted to talk like real people do. When I talk, I move my hands around, and I cannot talk clearly if I have to hold a pen.

As we were sitting down, I said that Shearer was making money again--meaning that the iSeries saw sales rise by 10 percent in the second quarter--and that this had to be pretty good. He explained that it was all part of a three-year plan he had for growing the iSeries business, and I jumped in an explained that the last time he talked about his term of office in the general manager position, he said "several" years, with a smile like a Cheshire cat. He smiled again here, probably because I remembered his precise words.

If you have never met Shearer, I can give you some sense of who he is by his body language. He speaks clearly and carefully, not too slowly and not too fast. If he speaks carefully, he listens even more carefully. He is very much in control of himself, and very sure of what is going on around him and what he is going to do. His conveys his excitement without actually getting excited--it's almost as if he is poised and poised to spring, if you catch my meaning. He is quick to laugh at a joke, and because he is paying attention so he actually gets the joke; he'll even laugh when the joke is on him, and he is quick-witted enough to throw a barb right back at you. But most importantly, he is dead serious about whatever job IBM gives him. He has been given the job of building up the iSeries business, and he is getting the team in place to do that.

He explained to me how hiring Bill Donohue from the pSeries side to head up sales in the Americas region was part of his plan to get the iSeries growing, and that he had hired two new sales managers for the German and Western Europe regions to try to bolster sales there (see the story elsewhere in this issue for more on that). The iSeries business was up 10 percent in the quarter, but there are pockets of weakness. He would not say where they were, but I know historically, the United Kingdom, which caught the Unix bug early and has had a weak economy for a long time, has been a trouble spot since I have been watching the AS/400. Shearer said that in the United States, where the iSeries has five different operational units, all five units had double-digit revenue growth in the second quarter. He said in every geographical region--the Americas, Europe, and Asia/Pacific--there was good growth for the iSeries, and that two sales regions had sales grow more than 50 percent in the quarter. (Shearer smiled and would not say where, but if I had to guess, I would guess those two regions were among China, India, Russia, and Singapore, and that if two of those four had above 50 percent growth, the other two were not far behind.)

We chatted a bit about the recent price changes in the i5 570 and the per-processor pricing for Software Maintenance in the i5 line, which were announced a few weeks ago. Shearer said that the one consistent thing that IBM was hearing from customers was that they wanted more granularity in pricing and that they wanted the pricing for hardware and software for new workloads that can run on other platforms to have the same pricing on the i5. He said that IBM was committed to making such changes, but did not elaborate further.

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