8 Apr
2013
8 Apr
'13
9:14 p.m.
On 8-apr-2013 0:13, Dave wrote:
They match with the survey we did before we went to VMWare.
Do you remember where it may be. If so, could you please point me
to the results of that survey?
IBM sell and support VMWare on their Intel and AMD
servers.
Why don't they sell more z/VM on their "z" things instead of VMware
on "x" things? I mean, if mainframes are so future-proof, desirable
and perfect.
Because of the "suits". By keeping zSeries
as a niche product IBM
can charge premium prices and keep the profit margins high.
But wouldn't that mean that they're trying to line their pockets,
fill their wallets and freeload, milking out in so far things can
(still?) be milked out?
When we discarded our Mainframe, a small Multiprise
box IBM showed
no interest in selling us an upgrade. They are quite happy to keep
selling us xSeries servers though. By selling xSeries and iSeries
boxes "relatively" cheaply they can sell zSeries as a high reliability,
high margin box.
But why would they if more andm ore are going to "i" and "x"?
I personally think this is what allows zSeries to
survive.
Do you know for sure, though? Some articles I've read seem to
suggest otherwise.
In my opinion the biggest mistake DEC made was to try
and take the
Alpha chip down market. It spoilt the brand image.
That's the first time I heard anyone say this before... Most people
complain that it was overpriced and (still) to hard to obtain, along
with (of course) a poor software library (e.g. under AXP versions of
Windows).
Another interesting statistic is average capacity
utilization:
Wintel-based servers: 8-15%
Unix/RISC: 28-45%
Mainframes: 65-75%
Where did you get these figures from?
IBM typically sell you a box with more CPUs in that
you need, and charge
by CPU power so it makes sense to run those that are enabled pretty near
flat out. If you need a boost then they sell you a code to allow you to
enable more CPU speed.
HP seems to be offering that as well (also "pay-per-use" and other
setups).
But that's what I mean, what is IBM doing to make sure that they
still 'stand out' and are 'ahead of the curve'? To me, as a
spectator, it seems like it's going down hill.
It's slowly becoming a bi-polar, x86 and ARM, world. In my view,
IBM, HP, Oracle, etc. aren't really fighting it very hard either.
Maybe IBM a bit more than the latter two, but maybe it's even too
much for them (not even so much that they're allowing to let it
happen).
- MG