Re: Apple vs. IBM
On Tue, Aug 03, 1999 at 06:51:00PM -0500, Jeramy B Smith wrote:
> > The claims about IBM there aren't too accurate. They're not so out of
> > touch. Look who they're selling rs6k's to. Big companies that want
> _full_
> > support 24/7 with AIX. They're willing to pay a lot for the support they
> > get from IBM.
Thanks Cort. You saved me one email. Unfortunately, having deal with the
fight here, I gotta address this one. *sigh*
> 1. Un*x workstations from IBM, Sun, SGI, and HP have lost ground to NT
> workstations.
Do you even know why? Partly price (well, mostly) and mostly learning curve.
Employers these days don't care about turnaround, and hate to train. So they
spoonfeed employees NT, deal with the problems NT brings with it, and save
on training.
> 2. SGI and Sun have introduced sub 10k workstations (O2, Ultra5) to compete
> with the NT market penetration.
I've seen those machines, and they're not worth an NT license. That's why the
machines don't compete. And FYI, I have a Power260 on my desk next to me that
was $20k (without monitors, of course) and will beat the crap out of a slew of
Sun machines, including a Sun UltraSPARC E450, which is $30,000+ in a base
configuration.
> 3. Sun Ultra5 machines (which start at $2400) outsell 43P150 machines by a
> large margin.
The only reason I can see this happening is because Sun is a media-darling.
It sure as hell isn't on quality, as I've seen PCs that run faster than
Ultra5's. Hell, I own one. It's just a little K6/3-400 with 2M of L2(3) on
a good motherboard with a $150 #9 RevolutionIV 32M AGP2x. And it'll pound
your silly Ultra5's into the ground so badly, it's not even funny.
> IMHO: Most companies I see buying RS6000 equipment are buying servers and
> not workstations. If service and support are so expensive, they should be
> made an option just like extra memory. Personally, I still contend that IBM
> is out of touch when it comes to Un*x workstations. Even the 43P140 is
> overpriced if you look at how much they charge for components.
I've got two S70's. I've got two C20's. I've got a Power260, an F40, and an
F50. Only the S70's don't sit on my desk. Service/Support *IS* an option. And
if you talk to the right people at IBM, they *will* tell you that you can get
a much better price on most components; memory for example, from distributors
that they give the okay on. Kingston makes IBM's ECC (at least last time I
checked. As I understand, IBM now makes their own.) and IBM uses their own
disks. So so long as you use those components, IBM typically has no problems
with it.
To say IBM is out of touch when it comes to unix workstations is so woefully
inaccurate and incorrect, it makes me laugh. The Power260 is arguably the
fastest workstation availble today. It's taken home many many awards. It
features the latest and greatest technology, and is still actually reasonably
priced when you take a look at it from the price/performance ratio.
I'm getting over twice the power of an UltraSPARC E450 for 2/3rds of the
price. Now if you're going to tell me that's a bad deal, you need your head
examined.
--
-Phillip R. Jaenke, Rabid Systems Administrator and BOFH
AIX/BSDI/DG-UX/HP-UX/Linux(Debian)/SCO/Xenix/Xenix286
"Unix is so much more than a way of life. It's a way of.. er..
it's a way of SOMETHING! I just don't know what yet!"
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.3a
owEBpABb/4kAlQMFADeiChoSqDDRqD2cDQEBM6IEAJ0I0DVyJOppctsda7rIIpFL
7xi4de6mRQ5lETO1aQBIuvn1e5NJM6IOdCv1jXVeRZ9ZGqoBS3Fe88akbdWidCGW
Zp3JH++h0xeo9ChpCUe3K1NtF/q3sX+51hJKDI9DqaNkC3g6lIuCnazFTm2M2gGp
/AoHV+1hYtiD4b53TAoirApiBGJsYWgAAAAA
=l3XG
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Reply to: