Bad timing

[Whittall, Conrad]

It is indeed an image of Concorde (nose up, trimmed for supersonic flight)
that can be found on all of the current packaging and manuals for the Cognos
application development tools -- PowerHouse 4GL, PowerHouse Web and Axiant
4GL.

Everyone in the ADT group here at Cognos was shocked and saddened when we
heard the news of the crash just outside Paris on Tuesday afternoon. Our
deepest sympathies go to the families of those who lost their lives in this
tragic accident, as well as to Air France and all of its employees.

We have no doubt that the accident investigators will uncover the cause of
the fire in the number 2 engine and that the remainder of the Concorde
fleet, in service with both Air France and British Airways, will have many
years of safe operational service ahead of them.

Our corporate marketing group came up with the idea of using Concorde to
represent the Cognos application development tools range a few years ago,
when all of the product images were being updated -- Impromptu's
observatory, PowerPlay's footprint on the moon, Decisionstream's high speed
train, etc. At the time we revealed the Concorde image the rest of the
product marketing teams were quite upset...it just looked so much better
than what they had for their products. It was generally agreed that the
Concorde image was the "best so far" when it came to the new product images.

I don't think that it was realised at the time how close some of the
similarities between Concorde and PowerHouse actually were: both perceived
as old technology, but both still the fastest way to get to where you want
to go...and really in a class of their own. Concorde is the perfect
embodiment of an older technology that is still faster, more sophisticated
(it was the world's first fly-by-wire airliner) and just down right better
looking than any of its modern counterparts. Have you ever noticed how
people simply refer to Concorde...not "a Concorde", but "Concorde" or "the
Concorde"? No other airliner is ever referred to like this...its always "a
747", or "an Airbus 320".

Unfortunately, after almost three years of use, our corporate marketing
group have decided that we should start replacing the individual product
images with a single, strong, corporate brand image. And so all of the
individual product images will gradually be replaced with the new corporate
Cognos image. In fact, this has already started with some of the BI products
a few months ago.

So, Concorde will eventually disappear from our product packaging and manual
covers. We will be sad to see it go. I should add that this has nothing to
do with Tuesday's tragic accident...the decision to replace all of the
individual product images with a single Cognos brand image was taken earlier
this year at a level way above me. I'm sure that it will be a long, long
time before the real Concorde is no longer seen in the skies above Europe,
North America and the Caribbean.

Best regards,
Conrad

Conrad Whittall
Marketing Manager, Application Development Tools, Cognos Incorporated

-----Original Message-----
From: John Webster [mailto:john.webster@cdp.co.nz]
Sent: Wednesday 26 July 2000 18:45
To: powerh-l@sphere.swau.edu
Subject: Bad timing


We've just sold a new PowerHouse license (HP-UX) and I had arranged to
deliver it to the customer yesterday. Unfortunately I arrived on site at the
same time as the news about the Concorde crash. For those of you who haven't
seen the latest packaging for PowerHouse, it comes in a small box with a
slip cover with a picture of the Concorde prominently displayed on the
cover...... :-(
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