Re: latest IT Jungle reporting

["Art Tostaine, Jr." <atostaine@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sounds to me like things are going perfectly according to IBM plans.

Art Tostaine
On 10/23/06, Steve Richter <stephenrichter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> IT Jungle continues its great reporting on the computer industry.
>
> in the feedback section a reader writes that his company has given up on
> the i5:
>
> http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh102306-story05.html
>
> "...I found your article on quad processors quite interesting. We have
> two applications: JDE OneWorld and Datatex J2EE ERP system running on
> the i5. ..."
>
> "...We have been disappointed in the performance of our two i5 520s.
> It is clear to me that the amount of memory you need to run WebSphere
> is so high--we estimate you need 40 GB of main memory for a few
> hundred users--and the cost of the hardware so expensive that we are
> no longer investing in this platform. Our future direction is Intel.
> ..."
>
> Timothy Prickett states how he thinks the i5 should be marketed:
>
> "... IBM has launched the i5 520 Solution Edition boxes with 20-user
> and 40-user caps. These machines have full cache and run at the full
> 1.9 GHz clock speed, ..."
>
> "...It seems to me that what we need to do is convince IBM to work its
> pricing backwards, all the way to zero users. ..."
>
> "... I would have priced up the hardware in such a way that the i5 520
> would have a base price exactly equal to a discounted System p5 520
> Express server with the same 1.9 GHz Power5+ chip. Call it $6,000 for
> the 4 GB of memory and four 35 GB disks on the larger box. ..."
>
> In a 2nd report, there are actual numbers on IBM 3rd quarter sales:
>
> http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh102306-story06.html
>
> "...The System i5 line brought in, according to Farmer's estimates,
> about $301 million in sales in the quarter, down 22 percent compared
> to the $388 million in sales from the third quarter of 2005. While
> this number was pretty low, it was not as bad as in the first quarter,
> when IBM sold only $236 million in i5 iron. ..."
>
> "...For the third quarter, Farmer and his team were expecting IBM to
> book around $353 million in i5 sales, ..."
>
> "... And System p5 Unix server sales beat its estimates by 5 percent,
> too, hitting $930 million in the quarter. ..."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------
>
> the x, z and p are each selling around a $billion a quarter. The i5
> looks to be averaging $300 million.  That means the i5 is 10% of IBM
> hardware sales. oh, boy. Will we be sold, shut down or will mgmt
> finally unlock the governor and sell the system at p5 prices?
>
> -Steve
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