isham research
IBM's Planter has now been announced as the Multiprise 3000 models H30, H50 and H70. These systems will be pre-configured with 1GB, 2GB and 4GB of main memory - from which of course HSA and the DASD cache will be stolen.
The real novelty is that IBM plans to announce NO official MIPS or MSU figures for these machines - and that implies no LSPR data, either. So how will they be sized? It seems that Internet-based tools will be available for channel partners, but their basis is not yet clear.
IBM has also announced a new licensing scheme (anyone keeping count?) called the Growth Opportunity License Charge. The principle seems to be: "Think of a number" - IBM is not guaranteeing that the relationships between charges for the various models of the Multiprise 3000 'family' will reflect throughput or any other metric, and the relationships between models may change in the future.
This is going to be a problem for ISVs, who like IBM traditionally charge by system capacity. The systems are rumoured to be roughly 60 MIPS, 110 MIPS and 210 MIPS respectively - for the time being, this might be all the ISVs have to go on.
The reason seems obvious. Other platforms have long been encroaching on the lower end of System/390, and this pricing system allows IBM to reduce the price/performance of each of its systems as it is overtaken by other platforms with inherently lower price/performance. Introducing this scheme at the low end only will protect IBM's huge software revenues from large users. That said, initial pricing still reflects IBM's traditional habit of making smaller users pay proportionately more for software.
It's sad, also, that yet another System/390 software pricing initiative occurs with no noticeable progress towards addressing the issue of small applications running within a large complex. MULC is cumbersome and inadequate in many ways, and small applications will continue to be lost to System/390.
Still not clear is whether RPQs for different Multiprise 3000 configurations will be accepted. An H30 with 4GB would be very useful indeed as a test and development system. In the UK, Cotec will be one of the major channel partners, and a review of their installed base for earlier Multiprises shows a preponderance of software developers.