Risc System/6000

[Richard A. Schafer]

In article <10307 at hoptoad.uucp>, gnu at hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> >    . . . POWERstations and POWERservers . . .
> 
> I like the way they adopted the Sun Marketing naming convention
> (SPARCstations and SPARCservers).
> 
> >                          . . . a complete system starting at $12,995.
> 
> Including OS and window system?  Manuals?  Ethernet?  Compilers?  In
> the original RT/PC announcement a few years ago, the lowball price
> didn't even include a keyboard or monitor, which cost $thousands!  One
> analysis showed that if Sun had charged as much for Unix as IBM, they
> could've thrown in the workstation for free!
I just signed on IBMLINK and ran a configuration on the standard grayscale
configuration.  I don't come up with the $12,995 price, but did produce the
following configuration:

Powerstation 320   $7475
120MB disk         $1950
Grayscale adapter  $1395
keyboard           $ 255
mouse              $ 130
mono display       $1295
                   ------ Hardware total, $12,500
AIX 3.0            $1250
AIX Xwindows       $ 500
                   ------ Software total, $ 1,750
                          Package total,  $14,250
 
> Also, one breakdown I saw was that this system only has four slots --
> and all of them are in use.  No expandability.
The system described above has 3 slots still available.
 
> >               Documentation is available on a 5.25-inch compact disc
> > (CD-ROM) that may be accessed from the user's POWERstation or from a
> > network POWERserver.
> 
> At extra cost
Or in the traditional hard-copy form for no additional cost.
 
> > IBM announced industry-leading graphical user interfaces . . .
> > available as separate licensed programs.  Customers can choose the
> > interface most applicable to their environments.
> 
> At extra cost
Yep, since they allow you to choose Ethernet or Token-Ring adapters, 
these are optional items.  In addition, you can configure the machine
as an asynch timesharing machine, which a host of asynch adapters.  So
I don't think it's unreasonable to do it this way.
> 
> >           IBM announced a one-year warranty that includes 24-hour,
> > seven-day-a-week availability of hardware service.  Full software
> > service is included in the license charge.
> 
> License charge?  For a warranty?  Oh, I get it!  If you buy the Unix
> from them, you are forced to buy full software support for it!  Well,
> no problem, I'm sure there are lots of third party vendors selling Unix
> for the RIOS...
Excuse me?  You're objecting to having software support included as part
of the $1,250 purchase price for AIX?  Given what I remember about
SUN pricing, software support included in a $1,250 purchase price for
AIX doesn't sound too bad to me.
> 
> > In addition, IBM has significantly increased its number of skilled
> > systems engineers to assist customers in the design, configuration,
> > installation and support of the RISC System/6000 family.
> 
> I heard from a usually reliable source that there are TWO people
> in the Bay Area who are trained to configure and repair these machines.
> That's a "significant increase" from last year, when there were NONE!
> 
> > IBM also announced SystemXtra for the RISC System/6000 family, a fee
> > service . . . . . . . . . . . .  total service solution . . .
> 
> At extra cost.
Yep, and considering what SystemXtra is, they'd be crazy to give it away.
SystemXtra is essentially a "we do all the hardware and software maintenance
for you, answer end-user questions, etc." arrangement.  While I have
no interest in it, if I wanted that kind of hand-holding, I'd sure be
prepared to pay for it.

> -- 
> John Gilmore      {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid}!hoptoad!gnu      gnu at toad.com
> Just say *yes* to drugs.  If someone offers you a drug war, just say no.
I just ran a slightly different configuration, getting a non-standard
package with an Ethernet adapter and the CD-ROM player thrown in.  Here's 
what you get:

Powerstation 320   $7475
120MB disk         $1950
grayscale adapter  $1395
scsi controller    $1200
ethernet adapter   $ 695
keyboard           $ 255
mouse              $ 130
CD-ROM drive       $1695
mono display       $1295
                   -----  Hardware total, $16,090

(this configuration leaves 1 slot available, having added the Ethernet
card and SCSI card to the previous configuration.)

AIX                $1250
CD-ROM hypertext   $ 115
AIXWindows         $ 500
                   -----  Software total, $1,865

(Interesting note: the standard shipment comes with the software
preloaded, and you do not get actual diskette copies unless you make 
them yourself.  You can purchase the "backup copy option" for the 
software listed above for an additional $400, which gets you diskette
copies sent with the shipment.)

                          Package total, $17,955

I still haven't found what they're including in the $12,995 price, but
presumably it's the hardware listed in the first configuration above,
plus something that costs $495. :-)

Richard