IBM Competitive

IBM's new POWER equations: Replace your IT staff with expensive Global Services and lock you in to proprietary and "old school" technologies. Read the latest Reality Check: The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server beats IBM's Power series where it counts -- the real world.

The REAL POWER equations

• POWER = Proprietary + Cost - Performance
• POWER = Proprietary + Heat²
• POWER ≠ Green
• AIX = Proprietary + Overhead
• IGS = Proprietary + Vendor Lock-in

1. POWER = PROPRIETARY + COST - PERFORMANCE

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server blows away IBM's latest Power 6 p550 and p570 servers with up to 4 times faster performance and up to 2 times higher performance per watt.

The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is 1/5 the cost of IBM's latest Power 6 p570 server.

Additional charges from IBM: for IBM 570, IBM charges a per GB memory activation charge of $1,060.

2. POWER = PROPRIETARY + HEAT²

• Higher frequency equals more heat and higher power consumption. Industry experts frequently talk about the "Brick Wall" of Computing Performance. Well, everyone except IBM. Cranking the clock frequency to scale performance is an evolutionary dead-end; while Sun and the industry as a whole move forward with multi-core, multi-thread processors. IBM is the last holdout and is exhausting the old technique with higher power consumption and higher heat generation.


• According to IBM's POWER6 Chief Architect, Brad McCredie, IBM's future looks a lot like Sun's CMT strategy since 2002: "You'll see us go more aggressively after threads. That's definitely a direction you'll see." (1)

3. AIX = PROPRIETARY + COMPLEXITY

• Instead of creating their own technologies, IBM is borrowing competitors' innovations, especially Sun's Solaris OS technologies in their new proprietary AIX 6.1 release (2)
• Role Based Access Control: Introduced by Sun in 2000 with the release of Solaris 8
• Secure by default: Introduced in Solaris 10 in December of 2006
• Dynamic Tracing: Introduced by Sun with Solaris 10 in March of 2005
• Open beta program: Introduced by Sun in Solaris Express several years ago, but still no AIX open source
• Workload partitions (WPARs): Introduced by Sun with Solaris 10 Containers in 2005
• More
• Adopt AIX and you are locked into the lagging technology of POWER as well as the whims of IBM pricing; no x86 or other competitive architectures are available for AIX
• IBM has been selling and supporting Solaris on their Intel and AMD x86/x64 rackmount systems and blades for over a year now
• IBM and Sun agreed to support Sine Nomine Associates's work for a Solaris port to System z mainframes in November 2007
• Additional charges from IBM: IBM AIX 6.1 License Fee
   - IBM 570 licensed at $1,225 per core
   - IBM 550 P6 and 560 P5 licensed at $385 per core

4. SUN = OPEN + ECO + PERFORMANCE

Sun's award-winning products and services portfolio deliver breakthrough performance with dramatic space and power efficiency. The free and open Solaris OS is proven, industry leading operating system with features designed to save your business time and money.

For Linux customers: You get the no-cost license, open-source applications and community support that attracted so many to Linux, but with all the renowned enterprise-class backing that Sun can offer.

REDUCE YOUR TCO

• Cut support and licensing costs with the open-source Solaris 10 OS.
• The Sun SPARC Enterprise T5440 server is up to 4 times higher performance, 2 times higher performance per watt, and as little as 20% the cost of IBM's latest Power 6 p570 system.
• Sun's services and programs help you safely migrate to a new IT infrastructure while staying focused on your critical business.
• The Sun Enterprise Migration Suite (EMS) uses proven methodologies to carefully step you through the phases of a successful migration — without forcing you to give up control of your business goals.
• See how much money you can save by making the switch to Sun with a free Onsite Datacenter Assessment!
• For a limited time, get up to 20% off when you trade-in your IBM or HP server for a eco-efficient Sun system with CMT technology.
• Flexible lease offers help reduce upfront expenditures and control monthly costs.

• Take advantage of our limited time offers:

For a limited time, get up to 20% off when you trade-in your IBM or HP server for a eco-efficient Sun system with CMT technology.

• Call Sun Services for AIX to Solaris migrations
• Contact Sun