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IBM sells 1,000th zSeries unit

International Business Machines Corp has sold its 1,000th zSeries mainframe computer in what one analyst calls ``a year of resurgence'' for the refrigerator-size machines known for their reliability.

Some companies are cutting costs by eliminating ``farms'' of smaller server computers that run Web sites and network printers.

Instead, they are installing one mainframe and partitioning it into scores or even hundreds of ``virtual'' servers running the free Linux operating system, said David Mastrobattista, an analyst at Giga Information Group, a computer-industry research firm.

Sales growth of servers running Unix operating systems has been sluggish as the economy slows. Meanwhile, IBM, the largest computer maker, says mainframe sales have grown at least 10 percent for the last three quarters compared with year-earlier results. The largest computer maker introduced the zSeries 900 mainframe in December.

``People had been moving more to the Unix camp; 2001 has been a year of resurgence for the mainframe,'' Mastrobattista said.

Mainframes, the most powerful servers after supercomputers, are considered more reliable than the smaller servers because they integrate hardware with operating system software closely.

Unix servers, particularly from the Unix market leader, Sun Microsystems Inc, have been preferred generally for running corporate Web sites. Armonk, New York-based IBM wants to change that. The company's 1,000th zSeries unit is expected to be shipped today to Boscov's Department Stores Inc, which operates 34 sites in the US mid-Atlantic states, IBM said.

IBM's mainframes typically cost more than US$1 million, with the price rising as customers add features. Unix-based Web servers start at several thousand dollars and cost as much as several hundred thousand dollars.

Consolidating server farms reduces the cost of personnel to manage the servers, the floor space to house the devices and the power needed to run them and associated air-conditioning, Mastrobattista said.

While many customers use mainframes for processing various types of transactions, some have been attracted by the inexpensive Linux operating system and the ability of mainframe operators to partition the machines, Mastrobattista said.

Entire server farms running corporate Web sites, file servers and the like can be consolidated on one mainframe, which IBM has touted in television advertisements that began this month. In one, dubbed ``The Heist,'' a frantic executive calls the police to report the theft of a vast roomful of servers, only to have a carefree underling remind him that all of the data was moved to a single mainframe standing in a corner.

More than 100 zSeries customers bought the mainframe with Linux, and others may have incorporated the software on their own, IBM said.

``It has been a very material factor in the resurgence of the mainframe,'' John Morris, IBM's vice president for zSeries sales, said in an interview. He declined to estimate sales growth for the current or future quarters.

Linux, an updated version of Unix, was created by Linus Torvalds and made available on the Internet. Linux-based operating systems are free, and companies can change or copy them without charge as long as they openly share any improvements they make.
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