-----Original Message----- From: Marcia Harelik <SNIP> It's all about right fit and balanced workload within an IT environment. What's the tipping point? When should a company move from Unix to MF? Or from Intel to Unix? What's the right mix of computers and TCO? Really hard <UNSNIP>
I think you are missing the point with your focus on large companies. This discussion hasn't been about what is right for a data center per se, but what is right for the development and ISV community If IBM is really serious about supporting this community, why shut us out by pricing us out of the market? From Microsoft, to Novell, to Intel, to AMD, the players recognize the importance of having small ISV's and individual developers working on their platforms at little or no cost. IBM gets this for the Windows and *nix markets. Why do they go brain dead when it comes to the mainframe market?????? <SNIP> Getting back to Steve's point that IBM MF is running from low-end customers, I don't think that is the case but IBM does understand that the MF is not for every company, and usually the smaller the company, the less true need there is for the MF. Besides, IBM has many other products to offer to these guys. <UNSNIP> Name one low end product that IBM offers that a small ISV or individual developer can use that has the same price point as the Flex-ES (or even Hercules - even though IBM goes apoplectic over an open source z/Emulator, they promote open source everywhere else in the company - just more head up the @** from IBM when it comes to the mainframe). I can't buy from IBM a system that is equivalent to a Flex system - Unix and Windows are not z/Architecture, so don't even bring those up again as alternatives. My P390 is dead and can't running anything past z/OS 1.4 and now IBM wants to help me pay them 6 figures to replace it with something that I paid only 5 figures to begin with. Alan Brown ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
