Barry wrote > In my opinion, zAAPs, and zIIPS and zFLS and all of the newfangled > processor type were created solely by IBM hardware gurus who could > not get IBM Marketing to reduce the prices of their CPs and the > software running on their CPs, and these hardware types knew that > if marketing wasn't going to reduce the price of z/SYSTEM hardware, > that they'd have no jobs in the future, and they invented these new > engines, and all of the software scheduling, monitoring, managing, > etc. so they could keep their jobs creating z/SYSTEM hardware. <snip> technically we'd be far > better served, with less overhead and no new people training costs, had > IBM marketing instead reduced the prices of their CPs and > associated CP-driven software costs. > > That the hardware guys had to invent these devices so they could be > priced cheaper - now those guys do deserve great credit for solving > a problem they shouldn't have had to solve - and for making it possible > for future zSYSTEMS to exist in the artificial pricing world of IBM.
Weeeeeell... not quite. Your're dead right on all counts with respect to the costs and the overheads (naturally) but the idea didn't just spring fully formed from the "hardware guys" and it wasn't directly in response to Neanderthal marketing guys either. There was clearly a desperate need for a new pricing model and the simplest solution would just be to have different (SMF) accounting "counters" depending on what work was being done. However, that idea would not pass muster with the LAWYERS - who said, in effect, "you can't charge two different prices for the same thing without getting us flayed by the DOJ". Leaving aside for a moment the question of whether that was really true in a legal sense (IBM doesn't seem to have any trouble at all in charging different prices for the same thing, to different customers all over the US and all over the world) there had to be a solution that involved a physically different configuration to attach prices to. Anyway, the hardware guys (and Bob Rogers, philosopher prince of the IBM brand organization) came up with this "solution" to a legal problem, not a technical problem. Bottom line on all of this is that software costs are the pink elephant in the middle of the room in every conversation with a customer these days. If they had not done something, whacky as it was, they would be in even deeper doo-doo than they (and we all) are now. CC ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
