Yes, IBM's "whois" does have an opt-out option for IBM employees. There are various reasons why someone might want to have an unlisted e-mail address, and some of them even make sense.
That said, I think you can reach any IBM employee (or assistant, or voicemail) by telephone, at least in the U.S., as long as you know the name and location. In the U.S. the IBM switchboard at 800-IBM-4-YOU can connect you. They're also pretty good at these sorts of questions: "I'd like to talk to Roger, but I don't know his last name. I know he has DB2 in his job description, and I know he is based in California, although I'm not sure if he's at the Silicon Valley Labs or in one of the other San Francisco area offices. I think he has the digits 585 in his telephone number." - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html