IBM Holds i 6.1 Prices Steady, Slashes Application Server Fees
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It has been three and a half years since IBM started to dabble with user-based pricing on OS/400 V5R3 and almost three years to the day since Big Blue decided--and thank heavens--to institute modest licensing fees and user-based pricing for the i5/OS V5R4 operating system. With the launch of the Power7-based machines in February, that was the perfect time to make any changes to packaging and pricing for the i For Business platform. READ MORE >

The Power7 Chip Gets Some Stiff X64 Competition
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Three quarters of the X64 assault on the midrange server market have been deployed into the field, with last week's launching of Intel's eight-core Nehalem-EX Xeon 7500s and Advanced Micro Devices's 12-core Magny-Cours Opteron 6100s. Three weeks ago, Intel put the six-core Westmere-EP Xeon 5600s out, and that only leaves the six-core Lisbon Opteron 4100s left to enter the price war battlefield sometime in the second quarter of this year. READ MORE >

Data Warehouse Mistakes Begin with i Avoidance
by Dan Burger

If you ask Greg Veal what platform is best for creating a data warehouse, he'll tell you it's whatever platform you are using for your operational data. For readers of The Four Hundred, that platform is the IBM AS/400, which is officially referred to as the Power System running IBM i these days. Veal is intimately familiar with the IBM i. His experience dates back to the System/32, but his ideas are thoroughly modern. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: When Price/Performance Outruns Elasticity
by Hesh Wiener

Since its inception, the computer business has given customers better value year after year. Customers have responded by buying computers even faster than price/performance has improved. Give more, get more is a nice idea, but in fact the story is not quite that simple. Computing is a harsh competitive environment, ruthlessly Darwinian. The industry has survived many ups and downs, but the same cannot be said of its vendors or architectures. IBM may find that its server business has survived the recession only to be mortally threatened by economic recovery. READ MORE >