Brian,
If you're planning to insert a Web link in the e-mail -- "Click Here for
More Information" or similar -- then you can "cheat" a bit. The URL itself
could contain the extra statistics as parameters. Then, when the user
clicks on the link, the server (z/OS) simply grabs the parameters from the
URL and displays a Web page with the extra information, beautifully
formatted. No database required -- the page just renders the statistics
passed as parameters via the URL. The e-mail contains all the information,
but the "ancillary" information isn't displayed until you ask a server to
unpack the URL and display it. ("Let me tell you what you just told
me....") Maybe even graphically, probably via a bit of client-side
Javascript. So the server doesn't actually do much. The server might simply
respond back with a static Web page containing Javascript that then does
all the "heavy lifting."
To satisfy marketing, the "junior" product would have a limited function
server component -- the same component/same code as the other products --
while the "enterprise" product provides its full Web-based range of
functions. The marketing people could add a (hopefully not too annoying)
message at the bottom of the junior product's Web output, e.g. "Additional
statistics and functions are available in (Product Y). (Product Y) is not
currently installed on this server."
Problem(s) solved. You've made the junior product genuinely more useful on
its own, you've kept secondary information in a secondary presentation,
you've gotten administrators and users comfortable with the idea of "click
for more" (and encouraged its adoption and its proper working state),
you've kept the design extremely simple (static "ping the server" Web
page), and you've more than addressed the marketing team's understandable
requirements to encourage customers to "graduate" to additional products
as/when they see value in them. Indeed, more customers could be interested
in the additional functions with this sort of design, not fewer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Timothy Sipples
GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore)
E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com
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