Software margins are higher than hw margins. Any software that IBM sells, not just mf sw, will yield more profit than selling hw. IBM is certainly not acting like a company that wants to divest itself of a product line such as the mainframe. Acquisitions like Candle, Vanguard and Consul bolster the mf sw portfolio. New technology such as the specialty engines of zAAP and zIIP demonstrate support of the platform. And IBM's fairly recent (in the last 5-7 years) entry into the tools market does not indicate complacency or a step back. Even CA, HP and Oracle are actively supporting either existing mf boxes or experimenting with comparable technology.
We may be talking about two different things. The IBM business model, and the future of the mf. Clearly, IBM owns the most market share of mfs. And IBM wants to optimize profits in the mf space. Some of its actions to optimize profits may appear to others as a "killing off" of some aspects. But the future of the mf---as a mixed workload server with 5/9 availability and high RAS--is strong and long. Marcia Harelik IBM Market Management/zSeries and Linux Software US, Canada, Latin America Austin, Texas 512-380-9680 Jon Brock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU> 04/04/2007 09:29 AM Please respond to IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU> To IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU cc Subject Re: IBM to the PCM market I doubt it. Someone on this very list -- Phil Payne, maybe? -- has pointed out that mainframe software margins are a large part of the total profit IBM rakes in. Jon <snip> I suspect instead, it wants us to have huge, secure, database machines that are fast and use up less energy than Windows farms - and IBM doesn't care how we choose to display the data on our desktops. And it would be quite content if we dropped z/OS, as long as we use its hardware. </snip> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
