Allison Park
"...Oracle and Fujitsu are really good at making big announcements without content...."
At least they have substance, which IBM does not have.
When the Mainframe cpu is much slower than a Nehalem-EX, how can IBM claim that a 20cpu Mainframe can consolidate 1500 x86 servers? That is just not correct. Some would say it is a lie.
Also, IBM claims that their new Mainframe Z196 cpu is the "worlds fastest". It has impressive specs; 5.26 GHz and almost 300MB of cache (L1+L2+L3+L4). But actually, it is much slower than a cheap Intel Nehalem-EX - as I have proved earlier. So how can it be "the worlds fastest cpu" when any modern x86 cpu is faster, and cheaper? Is this also a lie?
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32414.wss
Can you quote lies from Oracle? I want to see them? I have quoted lies from IBM, you do the same now.
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Regarding the new Intel 32nm server cpu Westmere-EX. It seems that the POWER7 could be something like 15% faster. But the POWER7 costs 3x as much, or more.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4285/westmereex-intels-flagship-benchmarked
IBM has made hefty price cuts for the POWER7, beacuse IBM is afraid of the competition. IBM knows POWER7 will be caught up on performance, very soon. IBM cut the price, because they know there is no incitament to buy slower but 10x expensive IBM gear like in the old days. Now IBM only costs 3x as much (entry level).
In the future, IBM will be forced to cut prices even more to compete with others. Soon POWER will costs as much as the competitors. This will happen - we see the trend, POWER is becoming cheaper. Because it is not faster nor better than x86. Then why should IBM continue development of POWER? It will be easier to buy an x86 which will just as powerful as POWER, at the same price (which will be very low). No more high margins for IBM POWER. Margins will be very low, and compete with the huge x86 market. When that happens, IBM will just drop POWER.
It seems that my prediction comes true: future x86 will catch up on IBM POWER cpus in terms of performance, because x86 develops much faster than POWER. When x86 is faster (very soon) then IBM will officially kill off AIX - just as the IBM executives officially said:
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-982512.html
IBM AIX development has slowed down, for a reason: IBM is preparing for the killing of AIX. Of course, POWER will also go down the pipe.
But IBM customers dont need to worry, even if Itanium is killed off today, HP has promised to support it for another 10 years or so. IBM will support AIX and POWER for another 10 years - even though development has stopped.
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Regarding Solaris, it already runs on x86 and does it well. If SPARC is killed off, Oracle will just continue to sell x86 servers with Solaris - just as today. But, Niagara is many times faster in it's niche, so x86 can not compete in the niche. Niagara will be there, as it delivers (in the niche). IBM CELL did not deliver, it was killed off. POWER to follow in a near future. IBM AIX is not ported to x86, it does not run there. And IBM has said it will be killed off.