Reader Feedback on How to Build a Less Expensive i5 Developer Workstation

Published: May 7, 2007

In last week's issue, I proposed that IBM create a single-user i5 developer workstation using Transitive's QuickTransit emulation environment running on an Opteron-based IntelliStation workstation. Such a machine, I hypothesized, would support an emulated i5/OS environment in one virtual machine partition and a real Windows environment in another one, and I suggested such a machine might cost around $3,500.

Here's what two readers had to say about the idea:

Wow. How do you know so much about all that hardware history?! This sure sounds good in theory. Would be interesting to know if anybody at IBM would take the time to check your ideas to see if it could be reality if IBM were to pursue it?

Something like this could blow the doors off the System i5 because the cost to gain entry would become very small (for most) and after the second version of this workstation came out you could probably pick up a used one for less than $1,000. The System i5 needs new blood (read more new younger developers) and this just might be the ticket to facilitate that. The more people that use the i5 the more features we will get (and in a more timely manner).

With IBM bringing doing all the work to make things like PHP and MySQL run on the System i5, it will give it more popularity and inevitably sell more machines. Hopefully that translates into people realizing the true value of running applications on the System i5 (stability/feature rich OS/etc).

Good article! I am at COMMON right now and will try to catch you to introduce myself. I have really been enjoying your articles as they have more flavor than most :-)

--Aaron

Thanks, man. Sorry I missed you at COMMON. But I got your email and I will touch base once I clear off my desk and clear out my suitcase.

--TPM

I very much appreciate your articles and endless work in defense of the AS/400 (iSeries, System i, etc.). I don't think that I would buy a PC for $3,500 that would emulate an AS/400.

That price would be beyond my employer (I tried to talk them into an IntelliStation one time). Personally, I would not go for it at home. If a personal System i with a dual core Power6 processor was available for under $2,000, then I believe it would be very workable for students. That may be below cost for IBM, but the advertising it would give to the platform would be much more cost effective than TV commercials.

College students that want to learn programming need to see the real thing. Frank Soltis indicated that IBM needed volume to get the per unit cost down on the processor. Why not flood the market with extremely powerful, low-cost personal computers for programmers and students? That is likely to hit the news.

--David

Then David had another set of ideas, and responded again:

Yesterday I suggested a personal dual-core Power6 machine for $2,000. As I thought about that, I decided on a different approach.

A Computer Science 202 course, 5 units meets MTRWF for one semester. Cost $3,000. Includes training manuals and a dual-core Power6 computer upon successful completion of the course.

The course is designed to give you a practical view of the most advanced computer system ever developed by IBM. The history of its development and use will be discussed as well as its capability.

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to understand how to power it up and down, apply PTFs and new versions of the operating system. You will be able to write programs to build fully functional applications for both the batch and interactive environment and you will become fully capable in using its Web development tools. In short, when you get through with this course, you will be able to fully operate and program this unique computer to build any kind of business applications in use by businesses today.

You will have a set of training and reference manuals on your computer and you will have gone through these in the course so you know how to use them. You will leave the course with not only the knowledge of how to use the most advanced computer that IBM has every built for businesses, but you will have one of your very own to take home that is a fully functioning very powerful system that will be the envy of everyone that sees it.

It occurred to me that to just offer a computer at a great price to people who did not know about it would be a waste. Have them sit in a room for five days a week for a full semester where they can learn all about how to use it and get some idea of just what it is they are looking at and then turn them loose. That gives a much more comprehensive ad than a 30-second TV spot. If you couple that to businesses that are willing to provide some internships for students that have completed the course, then you have even a better setup.

Perhaps there might be business, such as IBM Global Services, that could outsource programming to students with these machines so that the student could earn some money to help them get through college. The idea is to turn this personal System i into a working machine that students continually use to expand both their knowledge and experience. When they graduate, what kind of computer do you think they are going to want to work on? Why, the IBM System i, of course. It is the thing that they know best and they have been flooding the market with their software so businesses have more and more to choose from and will also want an IBM System i.

Well, you get the picture. . .

All IBM needs to do, besides provide the hardware and training materials is to have a Web development environment that is as easy to use as the green screen 5250 environment has been and they could create another revolution in the computer industry. Without that, this machine will become just a part of history.

I have seen a very powerful Web development generator that is all ILE RPG, that builds the HTML for you, and that runs with sub-second response on a Model 170 over a DSL line. This utilizes tabs, online help, and can be run with either the keyboard or mouse. If someone can do this in his home, I would hope that IBM can figure out how to get past the problems that they seem to have faced and get a fully integrated Web development model built into the box. By the way, the above development uses PDA and only the HTTP server. WebSphere and WDSC are not needed or used.

With it running on a really low CPW box, those things just don't work.

--David

I don't know what it costs to put a Power5+ or Power6 chip into the field, but given the low volumes and the complexity of the chip, I suspect IBM is doing no better than Intel can do with its Itanium processors. The top-end dual-core "Montecito" Itanium 9050 costs $3,692 a pop, and despite all of the talk about how Itanium has not met its goals as a volume processor, the volumes of the Power5+ and Power6 processors are in the same order of magnitude. I would guess that IBM cannot make a full-speed dual-core Power5+ chip running at 2.2 GHz (the top speed for the single chip modules) for less than about $4,000 or $5,000. The yields on chips where only one core is working are probably higher, so maybe it can put a single-core chip out for only $1,000 or $1,500. And slower chips, of course, have higher yields (speaking very generally), so a single core Power5+ chip running at 1.5 GHz or 1.65 GHz might, using today's IBM chip factories, cost a lot less than they cost two years ago.

What I am saying is there is no way IBM can get a real Power-based server to market for anything even close to $2,000. And while I concede that $3,500 might be a little steep for an IntelliStation, this is an IntelliStation with a complete i5 server built inside of it. And my design point was for the single-programmer shop that is facing a price of $7,995 for a base system and maybe as much as $12,000 to $15,000 for a configured server with all of the hardware and software tools needed to make modern i5/OS applications. Such a site will balk at paying that for their production server, much less a developer's machine.

It would have been best, of course, if IBM still sold PCs. Then, this i5 developer workstation could be had for $1,000 or less, not including a screen. IBM could basically give the emulated i5 environment away for free, pay Transitive for the QuickTransit emulation environment and eat the cost, pay for the VMware Workstation license to partition the box, and then offer a regular Windows workstation in the second partition. But, unless IBM wants to make a deal with Lenovo to create this special box, that can't happen.

I like the idea of giving a machine to students after they study a course, but this does not put a machine in the hands of the hundreds of thousands of developers who already have skills and who have always wanted their own development machine at an affordable price.

--TPM

RELATED STORIES

For i5 Developer Workstations:

How to Build a Less Expensive i5 Developer Workstation

IBM Executives' iSociety Chat: Direct Sales and a Developer Price Point

Saving the System i: Fight Pervasive with Pervasive

Future "Cell" Power Processors Can Run OS/400

For the QuickTransit emulation environment from Transitive:

IBM Opens Up Beta for PAVE Linux Runtime on Power Chips

IBM Breaks Through 2,500 Linux Applications on Power Chips

IBM to Use QuickTransit to Emulate X86 Linux on Power Servers

Transitive Emulator Ports Sparc/Solaris Apps to Linux on Xeon, Itanium

Transitive Gets Backing from Intel for Porting Product

SGI Goes All the Way With Transitive Emulator

Cool Stuff: Transitive Emulates Server Platforms on Other Iron

IBM's Chiphopper Tools to Help Build iSeries Apps

OS/400 PASE Is Not Dead

LinuxWorld Preview: More Ardor, More Products

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