Harry, >According to several industry watchers, IBM is mulling changing its pricing model for both its mainframe hardware and software when it rolls out its new line of boxes, the G7, later this year.
So IBM is mucking around with their hardware and software pricing. Sounds like the old bundling and unbundling days. I have no source of information about what they're doing, but have to wonder, unless there's something new under the sun in mainframes (except faster, denser copper chips, blah blah blah) what's the justification for changing the way they charge for hardware and software? Of course, wringing some more money out of their customers would be a reason, for IBM.
As for how long the mainframe stays around, who knows? I remember that it took seemingly forever for core memory to die, and the old CDC resisted using integrated circuits in their computers for a long time (used all discrete transistors). Those were hardware technology things, though. With mainframes, it's the customers that don't want to give up their software and processes that have been in place for decades, that hold on. I wonder what Gartner thinks about the future of the mainframe?
Tony |
