Solution Providers Tapped To Sell New Low-End Mainframes

The z800, code-named Raptor, is aimed at bringing advanced servers to a larger pool of customers, said Rich Lechner, vice president of sales and marketing for IBM's zSeries. He expects 75 percent to 80 percent of the new mainframes to be sold through the channel, compared with 30 percent to 40 percent channel sales for IBM's z900 family.

IBM plans to start shipping eight general-purpose z800 models next month, Lechner said. Pricing will start at less than $350,000 for a three-year lease, including hardware, software and maintenance.

For more traditional mainframe applications, the z800 will compete mainly with IBM's Multiprise 3000, Lechner said. He declined to discuss whether the Multiprise 3000 would be discontinued.

The z800s are full-fledged mainframes and come in one-way to four-way configurations, Lechner said. They support IBM's OS/390, z/VM, VM/ESA, VSE/ESA, Linux for zSeries and Linux for S/390 operating systems. The units also support 32-bit and 64-bit applications, 8 Gbytes to 32 Gbytes of central memory and up to 240 ESCON channels. What's more, the z800 can work with IBM's Parallel Sysplex clustering technology, which links multiple units for near-zero downtime as part of a business continuity program, Lechner said.

For IBM, the new entry-level mainframes mean greater long-term revenue from related software, said Joe Wurtz, vice president of eServers at MSI Systems Integrators, Omaha, Neb. "IBM can sell the hardware at a low cost and make it up on the software," he said.