Why? Mainframes processors suck compared to current Athlons or PIIIs. The reason that mainframes cost so much is not the fancy processors. They cost so much because of the incredible reliability, massive I/O capability, and most of all, the backward compatibility.
The servers being developed with McKinley right now are going after the incredible reliability and massive I/O capability. Ask Tenchusatsu. Backward compatibility with S390 SW, yes, forget that one. Do you think S390 will still be here in 15 years though?
IBM S390 processors are not slow. It's hard to compare MIPs with whatever in a Dell.
Where I work, we have a 16 CPU Sun box that runs circles around our mainframe.
So what's with the recent articles about a single S390 running Linux and replacing 50 or 60 Sun boxes?
So let's assume Intel completely kills off the mainframe. Great, IMHO, Intel _might_ gross a penny for every dollar of gross that IBM lost.
I don't think so. IBM still does up in the billions, WAG 6 or 6 billion a year in 390, just in sales. Service probably doubles that. I'll take a shot at that business. AND, you may get to replace all those old 370, 390 and all the clone boxes. Not to be sneezed at, plus, there is something to be said for the prestige part. A 16, 24 or 32 way McKinley box will not go cheap, should be well up in the hundreds of thousands each. The processors should scale up in cost also, as the big cache Xeon does today.
Still, I agree with you in a way in that, by far, the Sun market is where Intel and the alliance OEMs have the crosshairs aimed.
TV |
