I haven't listened to IBM's earnings conference call yet (in which there might be more nuggets of information), but the CFO's prepared remarks are quite interesting:
http://www.ibm.com/investor/2q08/presentation/2q08prepared.pdf Here are the facts I pulled out of the prepared remarks: 1. System z (hardware) revenue was up 32 percent for the quarter (year over year); capacity ("MIPS") grew 34 percent. That means System z gained marketshare again. It also means customers keep getting lower average per-MIPS pricing, especially for most non-U.S. dollar buyers. (That's just simple math.) And it also means any of you among these buyers are very roughly 34 percent more productive. That is, typically you're managing 34 percent more transactions and business volume with the same number of (talented) staff. Is there anybody else in IT -- or indeed, probably any other industry -- that can pull off that sort of productivity gain? Not too many. Maybe ask your boss for half that, which would be a 17 percent raise. :-) 2. Loughridge said, "...frankly, we were sold out." Apparently IBM built System z machines as fast as it could in the quarter, and it still wasn't enough to satisfy demand. 3. System z demand was particularly strong in Europe and the Americas, and in the financial sector. As you know the U.S. financial sector, in particular, is facing hard times with the mortgage market problems. But it appears that these companies are targeting investment only into the most fruitful areas, and System z is one of the very few. (See above regarding productivity.) 4. IBM shipped a record number of System z specialty engines in the quarter, indicating strong demand for placing new applications on the mainframe. 5. In June, IBM sold its first mainframe ever in Vietnam, to a financial institution. Vietnam's economy is small but growing very rapidly. 6. I also see in the earnings that there's continuing movement toward the most highly virtualized servers, and I think businesses are doing that for entirely sensible and compelling reasons. It's blades, mid- and high-end System p (which now includes System i), and System z that are performing best -- and z is a standout in that group. So this is something to look at in your own organization, particularly if you see movement in the other direction to de-consolidate, de-virtualize, de-centralize, or as one of my colleagues says, dis-integrate your shared infrastructure. In the virtualization hierarchy the System z, as we all know, is the most highly virtualized by far. So maybe somebody needs to come up with a "virtualization quotient," a measurement that indicates just how virtualized you are. If you're increasing your VQ, outstanding, but if it's flat or decreasing, that could be a sign of trouble in many ways. I don't speak for IBM, but I'll say anyway: thank you all again for another outstanding performance. There just aren't enough superlatives, really, and I know we IBMers very much appreciate it. Now, anybody here speak Vietnamese? :-) - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect Specializing in Software Architectures Related to System z Based in Tokyo, Serving IBM Japan and IBM Asia-Pacific E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
