It depends on the application...
If it say, a telemarketing firm where downtime costs over $10,000 per minute, then I think the choice would be obvious.
If availability is Not the issue, (enduser needs to add peripherals, or reconfigure remote attachment, etc.. w/o a reboot, or bringing down applications - all easy to do on an AS400), then buy NT.
If performance isn't an issue, say users needed extremely fast I/O, because this was a decision support or data warehousing application, then buy NT.
If upgradability isn't an issue, say customer busts out of the box. With an AS400, your enduser is buying at the bottom of the hardware family, with NT, probably more towards the top.
If 5-year cost of ownership is taken into consideration, and you factor in support costs, maintenance, support, etc... Then the initial hardware savings are statistically insignificant. Furthermore, some studies even show AS400's cost less over 5 years, because of reliability/availability/upgradability. Most studies show that initial hardware costs are typically 5-10% of the 5-year cost of ownership for a computer.
Soooo,
If customer doesn't care about reliability, availability, performance, upgradability and they don't care what their decision will mean a few years from now, then buy NT. |
