Re: OS/400 on a Sun unix -- MIDRANGE-L

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Stone" <brad@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 7:12 PM
Subject: Re: OS/400 on a Sun unix


> I believe in my original post I said "around $500" and
> stated it would be lost of lower priced sales compared to
> few high priced sales.

You won't get "lots of lower priced sales".  how many peopel do you really
think are going to buy OS/400 on Intel?  IBM already lsot the OS/2 battle
there.  The only need for it would be the handful of develoeprs and some
businesses to use them for a test environment.  Using them for developers
brings int he issue of application code running on a different processor
family, so you have to make absolutely sure code on OS-Intel woudl run
exactly the same as code on OS-iseries.

It is much more profitable for IBM to attack that market sector with Linux
because of growing market acceptance as opposed to attacking the market with
soemthing that will cost a lot of development time and money and which will
be fighting your Linux market.  IBM gains not a single thing by running
OS/400 on Intel.  YOU think it would be neat, but it delivers nothing.

>
> > The Unix market was small till Linux?  You are goign to
> > throw out that
> > TOTALLY inaccurate statement as your support?
>
> Small comparably, if you believe the numbers linux
> supporters and magazines put out about it's use.

Comparably to what?  To Windows on the desktop? Yeah.  Small for a
technophiles running their own server? Yeah.  Small for acadamia and
enterprises? Not at all.  Unix is huge where the money is (not counting
desktop).

> You're correct.  What I'm asking is for the choice of an
> apple or an orange from IBM.  Is that so wrong?

No.  But I am also not asking Jaguar to retrofit their cars to fit in a
Honda Civic price range.

> It's easy to take the path of least resistance.  But let's
> assume it's a slight possibility.  These types of view
> won't help it move any further.

You are nto thinking from a business perspective.  You want IBM to invest
int he diea of doign this.  They only do it if it will make them money
somehow.  It will not make them money.

> I don't care if Windows isn't cross platform.  I can
> install it on any PC I want and it will work.  I don't have
> to pay 10 times the price to buy the hardware from M$ to
> make it run either.

On any Intel platform.  Everyoen on this list speaks about the performance
and such of the iSeries and OS/400.  Do you honestly think you'll get that
same performancerunnign on commodity hardware?  If not, then you lose one of
the main benefits of  the OS/400.  It is easier, as IBM seems to be showing,
to move OS/400 tech into the Linux code base than to migrate the whole OS
itself.

> Not with people saying things like that... it will push it
> further to the back of everyone's mind, and especially
> those who can make it happen.

Well, magical consumer fairies don't work in the real world.  Short of
OS/400 developers that want to code on a desktop or laptop, there is no real
reason to convince someone to run OS/400 on Intel.  Take it from IBM's point
of view.  You are trying to make a sale to a customer. They want a server in
a $3000 price rangfe on hardware.  nothing fancy but also nothign cheap.
How would you convicne them to go OS/400 against your other product
offering, Linux?  You are goign to have a difficult enough time winning the
Linux vs Windows fight, let alone tryign to push Os/400.