Re: slanted article "Inside System Storage -- by Tony Pearson"

--- In [email protected], Paul Raulerson <paul.raulerson@...> wrote:
>
> I see your point, but Dell's business is built on 
> an entirely different premise than IBM's.  Dell 
> is setup to produce the lowest cost devices it can, 
> then market and deliver them to a  mass market 
> audience with the lowest overhead possible. 

Because Dell has competition.

> IBM developed and paid for 

IBM customers paid for ...

> proprietary technology that is not "mass market" 
> by any definition.

and customers now find themselves locked in to
a monopoly on both hardware and software.

Yes, if you go to extraordinary lengths, you can
wean yourself off of IBM's monopoly. How sad that
that's your only choice to avoid IBM holding your
balls in a vice.

> > Now suppose that IBM decided to increase
> > mainframe pricing by a factor of 10, what would happen?
> > 
> The person making that decision would be immediately 
> "retired" and his successor would roll back the pricing.

It's already 10 times what comparable software
would cost. IBM has no reason to roll back the
pricing. They have an incentive to hold your
balls in a vice.

> That's what a Board of Directors is there for, 
> to oversee the company and ensure that it remains 
> healthy, profitable, and ethical. 

Um, "ethical" would mean "doing what is best
for shareholders, regardless of personal opinion".

> Take a look at this board - these folks have integrity. 
> 
> http://www.ibm.com/investor/governance/board-of-directors.wss

I clicked the link, and didn't see where their
integrity score was listed, and would have
serious doubts that a benchmark for that even
exists. Although this is the internet, so I'm
half-expecting a link to some online test for
that.

Regardless, as before, any "assumed integrity"
by the board of directors should be, and presumably
is, dedicated to doing nothing more than what is
best for shareholders.

Shareholders LOVE having humungous profits.

> But they left the business when it became obvious 
> that IBM no longer had to cater to them per the 
> consent decree. Those companies made money pretty 
> much only because IBM was not allowed to openly 
> compete with them. 

???  IBM did openly compete with them.

> And since then, IBM has provided so many innovations, 
> z/OS, zSeries, and dozens and dozens of products 
> upgrades, it isn't even the same scene anymore. 

So?  Buy them!!!  No-one cares if you buy any of
those products. The dispute is that IBM is using
predatory practices trying to strangle any
competition by refusing to sell one of those
components (z/OS) because they want to force you
to buy their hardware as well.

Now you said that this is the free market, and
IBM can thus do whatever it wants.

Does that include hiring hitmen to take out
the CEO of Amdahl etc?

What about bribing/intimidating 3rd party
vendors to not sell their products to anyone
who owns a non-IBM machine?

Who are we to interfere with IBM's natural
predatory tactics?

What sort of world do you want to live in?
It's a fact of nature (not evil) that if left
alone, natural monopolies arise. Did you oppose
the breaking up of Bell?

Honestly, if you're not willing to break up a
monopoly, the tree-huggers really do have a point.
These big companies hurt society if they ever
get into a monopolistic position.

> whose ear comes within chewing distance.  However, 
> I really love Hercules. And I want to 
> see it totally legitimated,

I thought it already was.

> and totally accepted in the mainframe world. 

There's only one entity that doesn't accept it.
You should be speaking to them, not us.

> I just do not see that happening by the community 
> being so negative to IBM. 

Funny, I thought it was IBM being negative.

> It reminds me of a teenage 
> going on about how UNFAIR it all is. Usually because 
> he is being made to complete his chores before an 
> allowance or special privilege is granted. 

No special privileges have been requested. A
normal sale of z/OS was all that was requested.

> This is very much a similar situation - we want 
> big daddy IBM to give us something, 

No, not give.  Sell.  I was told that in Australia
IBM couldn't refuse to sell like that, but I have
my doubts.

> and we are acting rather obnoxious about it. 

Funny, I thought IBM was the one being obnoxious,
telling lies about Hercules, developed with much
blood, sweat and tears, having violated a list
of patents.

Is it really possible to be more obnoxious than
that?

They should be sued for slander.

> Look at some of the comments about IBM in this 
> thread, and check the words that were used. 

Instead of worrying about the reaction to slander
by a monopoly, perhaps do something about the
original slander by the monopoly?

> They are not very polite. 

Lying about an innocent person is not a good way
to guarantee a polite response.

> For heavens sake, we should be advocating 
> everything amazing and good about Hercules - 
> not deriding IBM. 

Or perhaps IBM shouldn't be deriding Hercules?
The outright lies are particularly distasteful.

In fact, I challenge you to find a single
untrue statement by anyone related to TurboHercules
about IBM.

> I will point out that just about everything I 
> love about mainframes - the hardware, the software, 
> the history, is thanks to efforts by IBM.

... is thanks to huge sums of money paid by
IBM customers, yes.  Did they get a good deal?
No, not really.  But there wasn't any realistic
alternative but to hand over the $$$.

> Almost everything that is - lots of other stuff 
> I love too. Hercules for instance. Linux, 
> Dave River's and Co. Assembler, SHARE, and more. 
> But NONE of it, not one thing, would exist if 
> IBM had not put the company on the line half a 
> century ago, and developed the thing.

None of it would exist, had IBM not been in the
fortunate position of having a whole lot of
people's balls in vices.

Please don't make them out to be some sort of
charitable organization.  They're one of the
two biggest monopolistic predatory entities on
the planet.  The other is Microsoft.

> And most of it would not exist if they had not
> kept investing in it, and selling it, and 
> making it better and better and better. 

It would not exist had IBM not been in the fortunate
position of being about to gouge people till they
cried.  Or left the mainframe entirely, at great
(but once-off) expense.

> So let me turn the question around -  what can 
> we do with Hercules that would:
> (1) Allow IBM to remain in control of their products and brands?

They already are in control. They have so much
control that they can even lock out alternative
hardware, by refusing to sell the software.

There used to be some restriction on that
predatory practice, which allowed Amdahl etc
to exist at all.  Some goofball took off that
restriction.

> (2) Encourage or enable research or development 
> into mainframe subjects?

How about - the same way it is done on Unix?
Without that whole monopoly thing.

> (3) Decrease internal costs of mainframe support and training?

Competition?

> (4) Encourage widespread but controlled development 
> of new mainframe software

More than one vendor?

> (5) Encourage or enable the use of Linux on mainframes

That's an objective?  What's wrong with MVS?

> (6) Enable embedded mainframe programs in very small devices? 

That's an objective?

> (7) ????

End monopolies and introduce competition?

> (8) ????

End predatory practices and outright slander?

> That's the kind of stuff we should be showing and advocating. 

Especially 7 and 8.

> That's the kind of stuff I believe will get us where we want to go. 

You seem to want to go to a world where IBM controls
100% of the commercial pie, as is the case now for
CPUs at any rate, and don't see anything wrong with that.

You aren't "we".  (I'm not saying I am either, but in
this case, you're not even in the majority as far as
I can see - you seem to be in some fringe group - even
going as far as calling their board of directors
"ethical" and we should put our trust in them - wtf?
In the traditional sense of the word "ethical", they
would have sacked the CEO after the first slander of
TurboHercules violating patents, profusely apologized
for that (ie every single board member, both on behalf
of the company, and as an individual), and then resigned
en-masse for good measure - did I blink and miss all
that?).

BFN.  Paul.