iSeries Perspective: Keeping Your Enemies Too Close

by Doug Bidwell

There is an old saying from Sun Tzu's Art of War: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer." This saying seems to apply directly to IBM's eServer consolidation marketing push. To IBM's way of thinking, Windows is not a threat to the iSeries, but it is a threat to OS/400. There is such a thing as keeping your enemies too close, even though Sun Tzu didn't warn about that.

Intel iron is not a threat to OS/400 directly, but it does run Windows. Windows on Intel iron, if embodied only in an xSeries, however, is a threat to OS/400. Having the two platforms exist side by side, as they often do at midrange shops, like close enemies getting even closer, actually allows customers to benchmark the applications that run on either platform and make direct comparisons.

Take this example, which I know well because I live it every day, supporting midrange customers who buy applications from J.D. Edwards. JDE's OneWorld suite of ERP software and IBM's WebSphere middleware both run on either an OS/400 or a Windows platform. And, according to the sales people for both, both sets of software run better on Windows than on OS/400. (I'm not talking about the database, but rather the JDE application layer and the WebSphere middleware layer.) So when the disk subsystems inside an iSeries that talk to an xSeries server are running like greased lightning--thanks in large measure to the iSeries Integrated xSeries Adapter (IxA) cards or the in-board Integrated xSeries Server (IxS) co-processors--the iSeries is helping Windows perform better than OS/400. Strange how this works.

So what is so bad about that?

For one thing, there are no margins on the xSeries. Resellers and partners who are used to selling the iSeries can't make their volumes on the xSeries. And without real growth in the iSeries platform itself--which can only be accomplished by keeping workloads from migrating from the box to xSeries-Windows platforms--there is no money to be made. Remember, each iSeries server can support a lot more computing capacity in its IxS servers than it has in its PowerPC- and Power4-based processors in its central electronics complex. That goes for the biggest 32-way Model 890s, as well as the smallest Model 800.

What does money matter? As resellers and members of the iSeries ecosystem, we do this for the beauty of the configurations and solutions we create for our customers, right?

The fact is, margins are the one thing that we are all trying to maximize. Margin is probably the one thing in the IT industry that is set at a higher level than achieving continuing improvements in performance and throughput. The problem is that, in hybrid OS/400-Windows solutions, we are replacing a high-margin item with great attributes--the iSeries--with a low-margin item with lesser qualities that will nonetheless show great price/performance--the xSeries.

That's why application suites like those from JDE and systems programs like IBM's WebSphere must be made to perform better on OS/400 than on Windows, or this battle will be lost. It isn't too hard to extrapolate what is going on with JDE apps and WebSphere middleware to the other applications in the OS/400 market from SAP, MAPICS, SSA Global Technologies, JDA, Intentia International, and others.

It's time for IBM and its OS/400 ISVs to get back to the performance trenches. In a down economy, manpower is cheaper than capital investment. The total-cost-of-ownership argument, which has served the AS/400 and perhaps the iSeries so well, loses its edge when companies are afraid to spend money and are looking for the best bang for the buck they can get. Scalability, reliability, dependability--these are all coming to the xSeries platform. As applications become more Web-oriented, the blade versions of these machines could start replacing both monolithic iSeries setups and server farm xSeries setups. (But that is another problem for a future year.)

If IBM isn't careful, cross-platform products like WebSphere are going to end up being the universal levelers at IT shops that support a diverse set of machines for good reasons. Unique types of processing, lower TCO, better scalability, high availability--all of the things that embody the iSeries experience--cannot and do not carry the same weight in a recession. The deciding factor has always been and will continue to be price/performance, and the iSeries team needs to do more than it did with the January announcements to help the iSeries ecosystem fight off the kudzu that is the Windows environment.

IBM needs to change what it is doing to make the iSeries the better--and easier--choice to make. Either that, or the iSeries gets relegated to being a very good but marginalized database engine. None of us ever wanted that, even though we knew long ago that OS/400 would have to cooperate with the Windows platform. Cooperation is not the same thing as surrender, and the iSeries enthusiasts out here in the midrange have no desire to surrender. But IBM has to give us the right tools and tactics to fight with, so we can help push the iSeries better.

Remember this: If you keep your enemy too close, when the gun goes off in a struggle, there's as much of a chance of shooting yourself as shooting your enemy.

Doug Bidwell is the president of DLB Associates, an IBM business partner that supports midrange customers on the OS/400 and Windows platforms, including suites from JDE, Lawson, SSA GT, Harris Data, Friedman, and others. E-mail: tuner@dlbassoc.com

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