Why does IBM pass up this opportunity?

Thu 30 Jun 2005, 01:59 PM

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by Ben Langhinrichs
We had yet another one of those cases where an enterprising BP decided to post all of the presentations from Lotusphere (or at least all those available originally from the Lotusphere On-Line site).  Some people cheered (mostly attendees who couldn't attend all sessions).  Some people complained (mostly speakers who want some control over their content).  Some people simply grimaced over the design of the website and the blatant attempt to harvest registrations (although you could just cancel and skip that part - not a very robust design, shall we say).

Of course, if IBM were to simply host the material themselves, there would be, presumably, less of the complaining and more of the cheering.  If they would even go one step further and point to the presenter's chosen page for additional information, they would make attendees, non-attendees and speakers all happy.  The attendees and non-attendees would be able to get samples and possibly updated presentations rather than old PDFs.  The speakers would get a chance to show off their websites, samples, additional information, etc, essentially draw the viewers into the conversation.  Even IBM would win, as they would share more up to date and valid information about IBM products and would look smart and reasonable about sharing the information with non-attendees.

So, why doesn't IBM do it?  It has certainly been suggested, begged for, etc.  IBM clearly has a right to use the content.  I imagine the cost of the servers to host it would be far outweighed by the benefits.  Why do they pass up an opportunity like this?

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