An AS/400 under any other name

IBM is repositioning its AS/400 family, now known as the iSeries, as an ecommerce server for beginners. But it risks leaving its traditional loyal customer base out in the cold.

Last month IBM pulled together 5000 delegates to attend its Common Users Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. The aim was to publicly rename its entire server family - from the Intel-powered Netfinities to the S/390 mainframes - under the single name, eServer.

But what does the move mean for customers?

The impression given at the event was that those business users not quite ready to embrace the ecommerce revolution would be left behind. But for some, buying rafts of ecommerce servers simply does not fit their business model - all they want is a dependable AS/400 machine, for example, to do what it has always done, although maybe a bit faster. This has now been renamed the eServer iSeries.

Wayne Charlton, AS/400 product specialist at ABN Amro bank in Amsterdam, summed the situation up. "It's the Marathon-Snickers scenario. It seems obvious that there will be enhancements, but under all the glamour and glitz, it's still a good old reliable AS/400, and it will take a while to get used to the name change," he said.

"While IBM is pushing it as an ebusiness platform, the machine will still be more commonly used as a good old 'nuts and bolts' number-cruncher by most industries. Not everyone needs them for ebusiness," he added.

The AS/400, still has an incredibly loyal customer base, however, and it isn't hard to work out why. It works, and works well, and when compared with other machines out there, it doesn't seem to stop working.

Tales from delegates of servers crashing were virtually non-existent. And as for stories of applications going wrong when the operating system was upgraded, well forget it. Visitors discussed how to get the best out of their machines, while speakers debated the latest trends in back-office applications.

An image problem
But perversely perhaps, it is just this boring reliability that has led to the AS/400's poor image. The brand was perceived as dull and lifeless, which led to falling sales, even though it is a capable server without many of the deficiencies that are commonly found in PC equivalents.

IBM claimed the AS/400 could still meet the needs of many organisations, even if it was often difficult and expensive to fulfil them using other currently available systems such as PC servers. Such machines probably pose the biggest threat to AS/400s, however.

The fact that the media has focused a lot of attention on Microsoft's Windows 2000 Datacentre Server, which was launched earlier this year, and on its .Net services environment, would indicate that IBM needs to argue the case that it can supply machines for cost-effective business computing more strongly.

"A PC server is cheap," said Paul Fryer, communications manager for IBM's Enterprise Systems Group. "But after you add in the time and money for operating systems and applications - not forgetting the large support team needed to manage it all - then things are a little different."

The cost issue
He contrasted this situation with the iSeries, which he described as a 'plug-in and go' system because the OS/400 operating system and DB2 relational database are integrated with the hardware.

The initial cost of installing an iSeries may be high compared with a PC application server, but the iSeries could prove a more economical choice in the long term, Fryer claimed.

But when looking at total cost of ownership, it becomes clear that a major part of the IT budget is spent on the staff that look after the various systems. A reliable AS/400 doesn't go wrong nearly as much as a PC and so overheads are lower.

This rationale may not be enough to convince IBM's customers that the iSeries is still the ultimate business technology, however. As a result, Big Blue was keen to point out that all of its eServers will have a common set of attributes.

The vendor claimed that the Chinese walls between its different businesses, which have in the past prevented them from communicating with each other, had been blown away. The result was that good technology developed in one division of the company would now be made available to all the others if they wanted it.

But what really sets the new iSeries apart from the old AS/400 is the addition of logical partitioning technology, which was developed for high-end mainframes. This makes it possible to run different applications on different partitions on the same machine.

An enterprise's website, email system and database could all sit on the same box without interfering with each other. To do that with Windows 2000 successfully and without too much worry, would require a dedicated machine for each application.

"The trouble with the AS/400 is that it works and it works very well. It is uncontroversial and tends to get ignored by a lot of IT directors I've talked to," said ABN Amro's Charlton.

He added that so much effort is made in targeting managing directors with information about Unix and Windows that, if the organisation doesn't use these systems, they start asking why.

The big squeeze
So it would appear that Big Blue is being squeezed from different directions - between Unix vendors such as Hewlett Packard (HP) that is trying to move its HP-UX-based systems into the higher end of the market, and by suppliers selling Linux and Windows 2000-based PCs at the low end.

It is worth noting, however, that HP was the first to introduce partitioning into its mid-range boxes, which may have forced IBM's hand.

Linux, which is playing an increasingly important role in Big Blue's strategy, can also handle logical partitions, however. In fact, IBM sees this capability as a key component in its attempts to open the iSeries up to more developers.

Big Blue claims it has embraced Linux because it provides businesses with more application choice, and this also applies to the revamped iSeries, which it hopes to position as a starting point for ebusiness.

It is also porting DB2 to Linux, and the bringing together of its different business units indicates that the supplier may make applications such as Domino and WebSphere available across its entire hardware family.

Fryer also indicated that the AS/400 would, in future, be able to run not only the OS/400 operating system, but also Windows 2000, Linux and Java applets, all on the same box at the same time. "No other system in the world can do that," he claimed.

All of this would appear to demonstrate that the AS/400 is likely to survive under its new iSeries guise, in both its traditional and New Economy roles. It has a huge installed base of - in most cases - satisfied customers, and although some feel disgruntled at the way they perceive Big Blue has sidelined them in favour of ecommerce players, the system is still being enhanced to provide performance advantages over its rivals.

Its scalability and security features should help it become a serious contender in the ebusiness space, but - and it's a big but - IBM should be careful of neglecting its traditional customer base in the small and medium business sector.

What's in a name?

IBM rebranded its entire family of computers on 3 October. This was the end result of the 'Mach 1' project, which combined IBM's servers under the new label, eServer.

Big Blue hopes this will dazzle potential dotcom customers, although it has left some fans disgruntled by what they see as ill-advised marketing aimed more at wooing financial institutions than trying to address customer concerns.

All new releases in the RS/6000 range will be known as the pSeries line. The S/390 family will become the zSeries, the AS/400 will change to the iSeries, while the Netfinity and Numa-Q lines have been renamed as the xSeries.