Reader Feedback on IBM and ISVs Launch VIP Program to Reinvigorate System i5 Sales

Published: March 26, 2007

Hi Timothy,

I just read your February 5, 2007 article on the IBM VIP program which referenced our report on System i for the gaming industry. Sorry if the definition of "workloads" wasn't clear.

We calculated total volumes of the different types of workloads (that is, reservations processed, HR/payroll transactions processed, and so on) based on overall industry demographics. The reason for doing this was because the System i tends to be used by the larger gaming and hospitality organizations and Windows-based systems by smaller outfits. So simply counting installed units wouldn't have given a realistic picture of the overall market position.

For example, if you compare a System i installation at a large Las Vegas casino resort with a Windows server at a truck stop casino, you will have a 50:50 market share split. If you measure overall workloads, the split is more likely to be 95:5 or higher in favor of the System i. We did this largely based on feedback from the larger organizations, who complained that they were seeing vendor market share figures which didn't make a lot of sense to them.

In fact, if you count overall server installed bases, Windows servers would have an unrealistically high market share, because we found many smaller gaming establishments with 5 to 20 servers handling the same workloads as a single System i box.

I hope that clarifies it. Please let me know if you have any queries.

And keep on writing the great stuff in The Four Hundred.

--Brian Jeffery, managing director, International Technology Group

Hi Brian,

I understand now, and that makes sense.

A simple sentence, like the one in your e-mail to me, saying that would have made the idea clear. HA!

Of course, that sentence would have indicated that the smaller casinos, who should have been convinced to choose an iSeries by IBM and its partners, nonetheless did not get convinced. This makes the case I have been making for many years now--that IBM doesn't really pitch this machine to small or even modest midrange customers or position it for them. This is a Unix box in, well, for lack of better words, Rochester drag.

Thanks for the note, and as you do more of these, I would love to see them. I may pick on details, but there is more information in your study than many of the things the iSeries market has seen in years.

--TPM

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