Are iSeries Regatta and OS/400 V5R2 Announcements Imminent?

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Here are the latest rumors about the iSeries announcements. Plenty of people have suggested that IBM might make an iSeries announcement by the end of April--perhaps on April 23, perhaps on April 30-- though no one seems to have heard anything concrete. Exactly what IBM might announce is also unclear. But the most logical and likely turn of events has IBM announcing the 16-way and 32-way "Regatta-H" servers, and possibly an early release of OS/400 V5R2, sometime in April. IBM is getting enough yield on the Power4 processors used in the Regatta-H servers that it can confidently say that its Poughkeepsie, New York, factories can ship a pSeries 690, which is essentially the same machine that will eventually be an iSeries, in two weeks. The fact that IBM moved the pSeries 670 (code-named "Regatta-M") announcement from sometime this summer to last week, with initial deliveries on April 26, also suggests that IBM's supply of Power4 chips is good and that its demand is low, at least compared with the "go-go" years of the dot-com boom, when IBM originally scheduled the pSeries and iSeries Regatta server announcements that are coming out now.

This is exactly the opposite situation that caused the AS/400 Pulsar server announcements to be pushed out by six months. In early 2000, IBM pushed out the AS/400 Pulsars because it said that no one was buying new computers in the wake of the Y2K-related spending binge, there was confusion over e-business, and there was a general slowdown in the ERP software market. But it retrospect, it seems more likely that IBM had totally messed up its server supply chain in early 2000 and realized that it couldn't make and sell both RS/6000 and AS/400 machines, because of short supplies of copper-based 64-bit PowerPC processors and excessive demand for Unix servers. So the AS/400 line got the short end of the stick. The shortages in PowerPC parts and the delays in shipping iSeries and pSeries servers are the main reasons why Tom Jarosh, former general manager of the MidMarket Server Division, which controls the factories where the iSeries and pSeries are manufactured, was replaced by Buell Duncan, in October 2000.

If I sound cranky about the way the iSeries always plays second fiddle to the pSeries, that's because I am. I talked to Jim McGaughan, pSeries product line marketing manager, last week, and reminded him that IBM will tick off a large percentage of its loyal midrange customers if it moves up the midrange pSeries 670 announcements at the expense of the iSeries Regatta announcements. To be fair, in these uncertain times, IBM cannot always anticipate demand, and therefore it cannot easily manage supply. When IBM and resellers get very aggressive and try to drum up iSeries and pSeries business, potential sales can be softer than they appear. Orders can vaporize at a frightening rate, which messes up the whole iSeries/pSeries supply chain. (This appears to have been what happened during Jarosh's tenure running the iSeries and pSeries factories.) By keeping the iSeries announcements somewhat staggered behind the pSeries, IBM can move announcements around to soak up as much demand as its processor and server supplies allow. This is a fact of life in the server business, but it is not an attractive one.

There is a way out of this, which I will discuss in next week's issue of The Four Hundred. (Here's a hint of what I am thinking about: Imagine if different generations of pSeries and iSeries processor boards all plugged into compatible chassis, from the smallest two-way server all the way up to the largest 24-way, 32-way, or 64-way server?)

Now, back to the possibly of impending iSeries announcements. Let's talk about circumstantial evidence. First, Bill Zeitler, IBM's Server Group czar, is scheduled to participate in an iSeries Nation chat on the one- year anniversary of the iNation, on April 23, to discuss IBM's server strategies. Second, IBM is sending me a non-disclosure agreement for April 16 for a meeting with the top brass in the iSeries organization to talk about upcoming iSeries hardware and software announcements. While IBM obviously doesn't want the press to talk about upcoming announcements, it usually doesn't pull out the NDAs as a muzzle over a long span of time, but rather because an announcement is due any week now. This may not be the case this time, of course.

What I am hearing is that announcements of the iSeries versions of the Regatta-L entry and Regatta-M midrange servers, which also are based on Power4 processors, have been kept in the summer timeframe. IBM had originally expected to make iSeries Regatta announcements alongside Domino 6 on July 23, and I think that the Regatta-M machines will show up at that time. I have also heard that the new iSeries naming scheme--Model 52L, 52M, and 52H--is kaput, finito, over. (See last week's issue for more on these naming conventions that may or may not see the light of day and on the Regatta-M servers, as embodied by the pSeries 670.) I like the idea of branding a machine along with its supported operating system level, which is what this naming convention seems to do. But people may get confused and not think that OS/400 V5R3 will run on a Model 52L, 52M, or 52H, which it most certainly will. For the 16- way and 32-way Regatta-H servers, I would think that iSeries Model 850s, Model 940s, and Model 950s are safe bets, if IBM has changed its mind. But who can tell?

The wild card in all of this are the Model 270 and Model 8XX S-Star announcements. IBM has 668 MHz and 750 MHz S-Star processors that it can roll into the iSeries line any time it wants to. Whether it will do that in April, July, sometime in between, or never is unknown. IBM wants to remove the S-Star machines from its catalog as soon as possible. The new pSeries 670 is aimed at replacing the S-Star-based pSeries 680 at all but the few accounts that need to run AIX 4.3.3 and Oracle databases and cannot make the jump to Power4-based servers until AIX 5L supports Oracle9i later this year on the Regatta machines. The fact that Oracle9i is not available on the pSeries Regatta-H and Regatta-M machines is somewhat embarrassing to IBM, especially considering that Oracle databases are the dominant ones used on the ERP and e-business applications that drive the Unix server market. With the lack of Oracle support hindering pSeries Regatta sales, IBM may as well push out as many iSeries Regattas as it can. And considering that, at best, IBM will sell a few hundred of these iSeries Regatta-H machines in 2002, it is not a big risk to move this announcement forward--provided OS/400 V5R1, or OS/400 V5R1 with a boatload of PTFs, runs properly on them.