The META Group left out Facility Cost completely -- that's power including wiring, cooling, cabling, hubs and routers, and floorspace (check out the prices for siting just a single rackmount at an internet hotel and multiply by 200 -- comes out to about $40,000/month).
Nobody puts in a zSeries without a SOLID business case -- the price tag is guaranteed to get the CEOs attention. Also left out is the multi-tier performance gains from using a virtual LAN inside a z/VM box -- OK, serving static Web pages will not benefit if that's all you're doing. So META Group did an OK job counting Intel apples -- and demonstrated the only thing it knows about comparing to mainframe oranges is relative MIP/RAM pricing -- other important factors must also be considered to avoid a blinkered result. So yes, you have to put it all together and compare side to side. If you need testimonial cases from production sites, IBM Canada's Jim Elliot will be only too happy to help out. George Haeh 416-465-2292 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
