Don Williams wrote: >Is using System z MIPS for "office" applications a good use? I'm not sure >one way or the other. >Could the cost of running office applications on System z be cheaper than >running them on a PC? >When more types of applications run on System z, IBM could sell to more >customers. IBM would need to make more z Systems. Higher manufacturing >volumes could reduce cost per system.
I get the list digested, so if this has already been beaten to death, apologies. The manufacturing cost per system isn't that high. The high costs are development and support. IBM doesn't *want* a zillion small z customers: that's not their business model, isn't how they'll make money. That's why there was no MP4000 (64-bit version of MP3000) released, although one was developed. That's why zPDT isn't generally available. So I'm afraid I have to agree with Mark Post's comment. ObAnecdote: Long, long ago, before Excel, Trax Softworks had ESS, a spreadsheet program that run under VM. We had it at the vendor I then worked at, as part of some swap with Trax. We didn't use it much. But then management had the idea to give the engineers (or "developers", as we were known back then) bonuses based on company revenue, calculated using a formula, with values to fill in for revenue and our base salaries. One of our guys (Michael Johnson, of SHOW fame) promptly created an ESS spreadsheet and sent it around. Well, the quarter ended, and we had the company meeting and heard how great the numbers were. We all scurried back to our offices (real offices--remember those?), plugged in our numbers, and called our wives (on real phones: not cellphones, not txt, not even email; this WAS a long time ago). Imagine our surprise when we got the bonus checks the next week and they were about half what we expected! "Oh...some of that revenue didn't come in", we were told. In other words, the company was lied to about revenue. And that was the end of that incentive program, since it had turned into a DISincentive. Doh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For more information on Linux on System z, visit http://wiki.linuxvm.org/
