Re: Prometheus

On 5/30/06, Jon Paris <Jon.Paris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

 >>The p5 is successful and it's system software ( DB2 ) is sold per user.
IBM makes money and the customers are buying a lot of p5s. A good deal all
around, no?

I don't know if it is still true Steve - but for many many years the p
series lost money big time.  It was the revenues form the I series that kept
it going.  It would not surprise me that much if it was still the case.

http://www.itjungle.com/tug/tug050406-story08.html

1st quarter 2006 sales:
 xSeries $954 million
 zSeries $555 million
 pSeries $733 million
 iSeries $237 million

looks like a reliable report. p5 hardware brings in 3x that of i5 hardware.

I know I'm going to regret asking this - but just what _do_ you like about
the System i?  I don't recall ever seeing anything in your notes other than
complaints about the capabilities/horsepower/price/etc.

I remember a job interview some years back and the MIS director guy
told me he didnt think I liked the system. It was kind of funny. The
next interview the person who interviewed me was pretty smart and I
got the job offer.

There is a lot I like about it. The ability to do problem
determination is excellent on this system of ours. I got a call on
friday that a job I had changed had bombed. The operator put
everything to the side for me and come tuesday I was able to look at
the joblog and pretty easily see what had gone wrong.

I am still able to make money coding on the i5.  Actually have done
more i5 programming in the last 18 months than I had done the 4 yrs
before that.  I just worry IBM is not improving the system and there
is going to be less and less work on it.

Let me ask you Jon, have the technical managers in the i5 division
ever gone to IBM management and told them that look, you are starving
our system of investment and we could sell a lot more systems if we
were able to make across the board improvements to the OS, ILE and
languages on the system?

And the other way around. Does IBM management come down on the
technical people and say something like "look how well the .NET
framework and CLI language strategy is working for MSFT. Why have you
all not been proposing a common framework and language structure for
all the IBM platforms? Why did you all not follow thru on ILE?"

Just joking, you dont have to answer. It is just that with the huge
profits MSFT is achieving from the constant churning of new ideas and
products, you would think some large investor or high level executive
in IBM would challenge the company to match microsoft's achievements.

-Steve