IBM accused of mainframe monopoly

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Well said!: 1)
"If you can pick it up or step over it, it's not a computer."

2)
Those of us with mainframe experience (beyond the obligatory 6-weeks of COBOL in junior college most ant-mainframers have been exposed to) understand the truth of the matter. No other system can match the I/O capability of the mainframe. No other system has the reliability of the mainrame. No other system is as secure as the mainframe.

We run about 300 servers now, adding about 10-20 a month. We have one mainframe. We have 6 server techs, the mainframe has 1. We have 2-3 server outages a day. Have had no mainframe failures in the 8 years I've been here. Mean-time-to-failure on a mainframe is 25-30 years. Server disks crash regularly, our mainframe is Raid-5 and could be Raid-10 if we thought necessary. Windows servers die beyond 50% CPU, mainframes can run maxxed out withoug failing. Mainframe can run hundreds of virtual servers (if you're willing to use Linux instead of the MS crap.

3)
If IBM spends the time/effort/money to design good hardware and develop good software, why should they give it away to the competition? The software and hardware has hooks to let other companies develop competing packages and many do - lot of non-IBM disks, tape silos, printers out there, as well as various software to replace or augment IBM's OS.
If company X wants to compete, let them spend 100's of millions on R&D and come up with a competitive product. Amdahl made decent (cheaper) hardware but it was not as compatible as it should have been, so they couldn't survive and ended up bought out. Hitachi the same. None of them equal IBM.

BTW: IBM hardware/software was not always as good as it is today. I lived through the entire IBM product line since 1962 - hardware and software. It's good today because IBM spend the money to perfect it.
Let the competition go and do likewise.; Posted by: steeleweed@... Posted on: 01/21/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use