RE: IBM 3RD QUARTER iSeries sales

[qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

midrange-nontech-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>   2. IBM 3RD QUARTER iSeries sales (Vance Stanley)
>
>  http://biz.yahoo.com/bwml/051017/20051017006152.html?.v=1
>
>  "Hardware revenues for the Systems and Technology Group totaled $5.0 billion 
> for the quarter, up
>7 percent. Revenue growth from S&TG eServer products was driven by iSeries 
>midrange servers, which
>increased 25 percent; pSeries UNIX servers, an increase of 15 percent; and 
>xSeries servers, which
>increased 11 percent. Revenues from the zSeries mainframe product decreased 4 
>percent compared
>with the year-ago period. Total delivery of zSeries computing power, which is 
>measured in MIPS
>(millions of instructions per second), increased 18 percent. In addition to 
>eServers, revenues
>from Storage Systems and Microelectronics increased 11 percent and 14 percent, 
>respectively."
>
>I'm not an expert at interpreting numbers but, it looks rosy for the Iseries.  
>I wonder
>what regions the sales are happening in? 


I'm not going to complain about an increase even if it's an increase over 
previous dismal numbers. It does make me wonder a bunch of things though.

How much increase is new sites vs. upgrades or added server units at old sites? 
If there's some kind of cost/CPW ratio that changes as new models are 
announced, how could that be viewed over the top of a change in revenue? I.e., 
if cost/CPW drops by 3% and revenue rises by 10%, that's more interesting to me 
than just knowing revenue rose.

Then there are interesting questions about the breakdowns. Are high-end units 
selling well? Was there a surge in low-end? Is a big part of the revenue rise 
because of OS/400 licenses on LPARs? Many, many possible questions.

Ah, speculation. But someday it'd sure be interesting (to me) to see some solid 
info on what really went on over the years.

Tom Liotta