A Tough Road Ahead for the Industry
From IBM's perspective, 2001 was a slow year in sales of servers but a year in which IBM nonetheless gained market share against its competitors. Now claiming 29.3 percent of the market, IBM held its ground in the server market, while Sun, Compac, and HP dropped. There is now no question that IBM is firmly ahead in the market leadership position. But that, according to Palmisano, is not the endgame.In this market, technology purveyors must move into the services arena if they are to survive. Selling hardware or software is no longer enough. That's why Microsoft has moved away from being solely a technology provider by adding services to its offerings. That's why Compac and HP are merging. That's why Dell has been so successful with its customers. The customer market is saturated with technology promises. What's missing for the customer are compelling business solutions that are integrated together into an e-business infrastructure and that actually work.
This is why IBM rebranded all of its servers more than a year ago: It is not the particular hardware technologies that will be important to the customer; it's how those technologies integrate and work together. This is also why IBM is branding its WebSphere products and using open standards to connect them: A standalone solution is no longer possible in an e-business world. This is also why IBM has embraced the Linux initiative: Proprietary solutions--solutions that can't work seamlessly between platforms--can't compete in an interconnected e-business world.
For IBM, the Linux initiative and the WebSphere strategy are paramount. By supporting a common operating system layer and a comprehensive middleware infrastructure, IBM ensures that which eServer a customer purchases will no longer matter. What Business Partners need to sell to customers are solutions, not technologies. How well IBM works with its Business Partners to create and package these business solutions will determine IBM's success in transforming its business model from technology purveyor to services provider.
iSeries: Mainframe for the Middle?
In a separate session, Buell Duncan, GM of iSeries and pSeries platforms, stressed that the iSeries will continue to play an important role in IBM's overall strategy. To a room jam-packed with iSeries Business Partners, Duncan revealed that over 80 percent of last year's iSeries sales came through IBM Business Partners and that IBM is using the success of this iSeries Business Partner structure as a model for the success it hopes to repeat in other sectors as it continues to move toward a services-based business model.The iSeries is an important asset for IBM in the midmarket precisely because it is an ideal services platform: It can integrate Windows, Unix, and Linux into a single footprint. It is IBM's fastest Java server. It's the perfect machine for midmarket customers, who need the power and the scalability of a mainframe without the complexity and the overhead of personnel. And yet, despite this power, the iSeries is still the most manageable platform of all IBM eServers. For these reasons, Duncan has begun calling the iSeries "the mainframe for the midmarket." In Duncan's estimation, only the mainframe can compete with the iSeries platform in terms of flexibility and power.
Couple that with the most recent iSeries announcements, and IBM believes there is no services-oriented platform that is more competitive--and no platform that can claim better price-performance advantages--than the iSeries. As proof, Duncan pointed to the product-of-the-year award the iSeries received at LinuxWorld less than a month ago.
Mainframe Coattails for the iSeries?
But isn't the mainframe dead? Wasn't that the message that the media was broadcasting more than 10 years ago amid the downsizing frenzy that overtook IT in the late 1980s?If the mainframe was dead, it's back now in a completely new role.
According to IBM, the zSeries saw double-digit growth at the end of 2001--the first time IBM's mainframe sales broke the 10 percent mark since 1989. This sudden interest in mainframe capabilities was the result, according to Palmisano, of customers seeing the opportunity to remove complexity from their burgeoning network infrastructurse. This dynamic, coupled with IBM's new low-end zSeries mainframes, demonstrated that it is not the particular technology platform that is driving customer demand, but the services that can be delivered with a reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Maybe that's why Duncan is trying to depict the iSeries as the mainframe for the midmarket. If there's a demand for mainframe capabilities in an affordable midmarket package--a package that will run "everything" and still scale across the enterprise--isn't it only fair that the iSeries get a piece of the action?
Thomas M. Stockwell is Editor in Chief of MCMagOnline. He can be reached at
More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.
TRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now! Request Now.
Forms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.
Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:
Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.
IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn:
LATEST COMMENTS
MC Press Online