Re: Changed to: Interactive Tax

So, basically everyone is saying:

If you need your AS/400 with interactive support, you pay X dollars for the
AS/400 and X dollars for the interactive hardware.

If you don't want the interactive functionality, you just pay X dollars for
the AS/400.

It sounds rather similar to the old 386 and 486 days.  You paid X dollars
for a CPU and an FPU and you paid less with the FPU disabled.

So Intel had a "FPU tax" in place? :)

Am I following this correctly?

Adam Lang
Systems Engineer
Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
http://www.rutgersinsurance.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Nolen-Parkhouse" <aparkhouse@mediaone.net>
To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 2:47 PM
Subject: RE: Changed to: Interactive Tax


> Adam,
>
> Using the term 'interactive tax' is a way of espousing an emotional
> leaning on the topic to begin with.
>
> Trying to strip away the emotion:
>
> IBM needed the AS/400 to compete in the 'server' space with Unix and NT
> boxes doing client/server and web work.  In order for this to happen,
> they dramatically lowered the price of the AS/400 (iSeries) base
> processors when they were only used for these types of batch workloads.
>
> IBM also had an established revenue stream from those clients who were
> using the AS/400 for traditional green-screen interactive work (5250).
> In order to maintain this revenue stream they implemented a two-tier
> performance system in which the 5250 work is limited by a hardware
> feature.  This feature is purchased separately and can be quite
> expensive.  These established customers are paying slightly less than
> they did on previous models but considerably more than they would have
> if IBM had allowed the entire processor to be available for interactive
> work.  It is a 5250 governor of sorts.
>
> My guess is that they are trying to maintain an existing revenue stream,
> while allowing the iSeries to be more competitive in the server space.