There is no relation between the cost of designing and building hardware to the cost of developing and maintaining software.
-----Original Message----- From: Eric Bielefeld [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2003 12:33 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: URGENT! really low performance. A related question... Bill, You make some good points. Phil Payne regularly posted on this issue on IBM-Main. If you look at the cost of hardware and how much it has gone down, and compare that to the price of the software, something is rotten. IBM isn't going to lose big insurance companies, big banks, and other large corporations, however not many new customers when looking at the price of z/OS are going to buy mainframes and put z/OS on them. They did a good thing with z/OS lite - if you don't run Cobol or CICS and maybe a few other things, it costs about 10% of the regular z/OS. Why can't IBM price their software cheaper as the hardware costs come down? We had a 3090-600S until 4 years ago. When that machine first came out, the list price was $11,000,000. A little over a year ago, we got an MP3000-H50, which the purchase price is less than $200,000. Both machines are very close in perforance. That's a 50 to 1 reduction in hardware cost. If IBM priced their software the same way, it would eventually become almost as popular as Windows. (Well, maybe not quite). Eric Bielefeld Sr. MVS Systems Programmer P&H Mining Equipment Milwaukee, WI 414-671-7849 [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/18/03 01:38PM >>> I have more of a problem justifying migrating a existing group 38 system to an "entry level" group 38 z800 or to a group 80 "entry level" system on a z900 when my management compares the software licensing costs from various vendors we use to process what is essentially a static workload. Every time a new mainframe hardware platform is announced the "entry level" group is higher in performance and associated software costs than the previous generation. How many small to medium mainframe shops did IBM loose because of the zSeries software pricing differences? What about third party vendors? How many of them have lost clients because of tiered pricing? Sure, zVM is lower in cost on zSeries and Linux is virtually free but what about those shops running CA or other vendor products looking at a two or more tier jump in pricing to process the same workload on a new machine? Why not say the "entry level" is the lowest processor model and make it a group 10 no matter what the mip rating and leave the software pricing alone? How many shops would keep or buy new mainframes if you only had to pay group 10 pricing for what is now a group 38 box? How many shops would look for new workloads to migrate to the mainframe to utilize the "spare" horsepower? The idea is to grow the market not stunt it with sort term profits. An investment in any mainframe is for long term processing requirements. Those mainframe clients want to stay around and not have the data center viewed as a purveyor of the "platform du jour" or "fad pushers". My $0.02USD... Bill Stermer ACS - City of Anaheim +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ This electronic mail transmission contains information from P & H Mining Equipment which is confidential, and is intended only for the use of the proper addressee. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us immediately at the return address on this transmission, or by telephone at (414) 671-4400, and delete this message and any attachments from your system. Unauthorized use, copying, disclosing, distributing, or taking any action in reliance on the contents of this transmission is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
