Article from RB supposedly to be distributed tomorrow by Bloomberg:
EDITORS: FOR USE IN AM EDITIONS
THURSDAY, MARCH 30. NOT FOR
Armonk, New York, March 30 (Bloomberg) --
International Business Machines Corp. and its
customers have found a way to make a mainframe
act like hundreds of smaller computer servers, a
breakthrough aimed at cutting into Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s sales.
IBM has been able to make copies of the Linux
computer operating system and run them on one
mainframe, in essence creating scores of
independent computer systems. IBM is working with
Linux, free software that competes with Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows, because it's the foundation for
many Internet sites.
Companies that use IBM mainframes often turn to
Sun for servers that run Web sites, taking business
from IBM. The world's biggest computer maker is
trying to persuade customers that mainframes,
many times viewed as dinosaurs in the Internet
world, are better at Web-based transactions.
``It's definitely going to help IBM,' said Bill
Claybrook, an analyst at Boston-based Aberdeen
Research. ``It will give customers options.'
IBM may target companies that run Web sites for
businesses, such as Exodus Communications Inc.
Exodus and rival Web-hosting companies stock
buildings full of servers to operate sites.
The mainframes ``definitely could have an impact on
server consolidation,' said Irving
Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's vice president of
technology and strategy and head of the Linux
effort.
IBM opened a $3 million center in Poughkeepsie,
New York, for companies to test computers to run
Web sites.
Mainframe Revival?
IBM's mainframe effort is aimed at slowing Sun's
momentum. Sun, based in Palo Alto, California, sold
8,053 big servers that run the Unix operating system
in the fourth quarter, according to Framingham,
Massachusetts-based researcher IDC. In
comparison, Armonk, New York-based IBM sold
2,669.
``They see us taking business from them, and
they're looking for ways to take it back,' said Chris
Kruell, manager of strategy and programs for
data-center products at Sun.
IBM's revenue from servers and mainframes fell 18
percent to $8.7 billion last year.
Linux, on the other hand, is attracting computer
customers. Shipments of Linux-based machines will
soar 25 percent from this year through 2003, more
than twice the 10 percent to 12 percent pace for
other workstation and server systems, according to
IDC.
The software that runs the Linux copies is nothing
new. IBM invented the Virtual Machine, or VM,
program in the 1960s so that mainframe users could
test a new release of an operating system while
using a current operating system to run the
business.
In December, IBM and mainframe customers
including Dimension Enterprises Inc. and Princeton
University began using VM to run copies of Linux.
Dimension, a Herndon, Virginia-based computer
consultant that Nortel Networks Corp. agreed to buy
last month, tested 41,000 copies of Linux for a large
telecommunications customer. The client, which
Dimension wouldn't name, provides Internet access.
The test by Dimension convinced the customer to
use the mainframe rather than Sun servers.
``It worked beautifully,' said David Boyes, a
principal engineer at Dimension, who helped set up
the test. ``The system took up no more floor space,
no more power than what they already had paid
for.'
Speed Advantage
IBM is touting the speed advantages of the
mainframe setup to customers.
In some cases, it takes minutes for data, such as
inventory and ordering information, to flow from a
mainframe to the Sun servers and back. An IBM
mainframe with multiple Linux versions that contain
the data and Internet access can speed up the flow,
IBM said.
``You could remove 90 percent of the delay time,'
said Bill Zeitler, an IBM general manager who heads
the company's mainframe business.
The speed difference between the mainframe and
Sun server setups isn't ``measurable,' Sun's Kruell
said.
The shares of IBM fell 3 to 119 1/4 on trading on
the New York Stock Exchange. Sun fell 3 1/2 to 97
1/8 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Mar/29/2000 17:51
ragingbull.com
Lynn |
