RE: Changed to: Interactive Tax -- MIDRANGE-L

Briefly...  It sucks...

The more thorough answer follows:

IBM is selling 400s at two different prices.  They had a lucrative market,
that made them billions, with the 400.  But in order to sell it to new
customers (which contrary to posts otherwise, they ARE doing), they had to
be more competitive on price.

So they settled on the interactive "tax" as a way to subsidize the price on
"server" models.  This occured over a period of years, going back to when
they started offering "mixed-mode" machines (ie ones that had different
performance CPWs for batch and interactive).

You buy "interactive feature" as a hardware upgrade.  This is controlled by
the CFINT governor.  You CANNOT exceed a specified level of interactive,
because this software prevents it.  This is the raison detre' (sp?) for the
FAST400 tool, which flips a bit to make interactive jobs appear as if they
are batch jobs, thus avoiding the CFINT governor.

(BTW, Mr. Gerstner was asked about a governor in the 400.  Gerstner replied
that this made NO SENSE to have a governor in one of their servers.  IMHO,
he was mis-lead...)

There are plenty of tools that allow you to re-engineer your applications,
to a client/server mode that bypasses the interactive "tax".  Few, however,
can afford the massive expense of re-engineering their apps.  That's why
many refer to iSeries customers as "captive".


IBM is heavily commited to this pricing model, as indicated by the fact that
IBM's own re-engineering tool, WebFacing, still uses the interactive
"feature".  It would have been a simple technical matter to have WebFacing
under batch but, again, that would cost the iSeries Division billions of
PROFITS, and may very well put them out of business.


I sent a post outlining a different pricing model, a week or so ago...


The problem is that, until IBM gets SIGNIFICANTLY larger volume in units,
they are in a REAL crunch...  My hope for the iNation is that this would
give IBM the volume sales they need, in order to price all 400s at the same
price.  But how IBM gets from "here" to "there" is a very delicate matter...

If you look at the archives, under the TigerTools and/or Fast400 threads of
the month or so, you can see the issues involved.  IMHO, those that see that
it does little good for the iSeries Division to go out of business, see this
situation clearly.

hth

jt


jt

| -----Original Message-----
| From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com
| [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Adam Lang
| Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 11:12 AM
| To: midrange-l@midrange.com
| Subject: Re: Changed to: Interactive Tax
|
|
| Can someone just give me a quick synopsis of this Interactive Tax always
| being brought up?
|
| Adam Lang
| Systems Engineer
| Rutgers Casualty Insurance Company
| http://www.rutgersinsurance.com
| ----- Original Message -----
| From: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com>
| To: <midrange-l@midrange.com>
| Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2001 10:07 PM
| Subject: RE: Trivia: Processor MHz
|

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