isham research

IBM reviews server platforms

IBM is currently thought to be conducting a thorough review of its server platforms under Samuel Palmisano to look for rationalisation opportunities.

Already criticised for having four overlapping platforms (Netfinity, RS/6000, AS/400 and System/390) IBM has recently added to the complications by acquiring Sequent's NUMA-Q architecture. On the software side things are even more complicated - OS/390 became a branded UNIX, Monterey is becoming viable and IBM has also commited to Linux on all platforms.

The review was originally expected to report at the end of January, but IBM is now expected to brief analysts no earlier than the end of March.