RE: Discontinuance of support for the *M36

DAve,

At 5/5/00 10:38 AM -0400, you wrote:

M36, on the other hand, is a virtual machine defined way down
deep in the SLIC.  I would guess (based on stuff I read about it when they
introduced the 236 machines) that parts of it might need to be hardware
specific, which means that it would need attention with every new model line
produced.  That's where they would be able to save some cost and simplify
the product by dropping the *M36 support.  The hardware connection is
speculative on my part, but it's clear from the way they work that there's
almost nothing shared between the *M36 and the 36EE implementations - not
even the technical skills to keep bringing them forward from one release to
the next.

 Interesting.  I agree that this is probably the case.  *But* if you look at the announced plans for OS/400 (this is going back a while, but the basic premise remains) and you will see that the ability to host guest OSs are part of that plan.

 Back to the *M36.  SSP is stable.  *The M36 is stable.  I don't know how many S/36 and *M36 accounts there are out there, but I would venture to say it's significant.  My guess is 50K - 100K!!  They are paying customers - hardware, software, services and loyalty.  Ah yes, loyalty to IBM.  How long can IBM jerk these customers around before they run to some other platform?

 -mark