IBM Corp is once again revamping the venerable AS/400, re- launching it on August 19 as the cornerstone of chairman Louis Gerstner’s electronic commerce policy. The new systems are presumably those eight- and maybe 12-ways using Apache, the single-chip implementation of the seven-chip PowerPC AS processor it currently uses and the one also destined for new ‘Raven’ RS/6000s (CI No 2,928). They are also supposed to use a souped-up version of the Data Crossbar Switch already found in RS/6000 SMP servers, to deliver linear performance increases as processors are added. The new systems are supposed to be at least three times as powerful as existing systems. Making AS/400 fit for a fast-growing electronic and Internet environment makes a lot of sense if we believe Zona Research. Its latest report predicts that the market for systems accessing the Internet and building intranets will exceed $10,000 by the year 2000, almost three times greater than the 1996 figure. Much of the expected growth is attributable to electronic commerce.
