While Hitachi Ltd is still only discussing its next top-end mainframe, Fujitsu Ltd has announced a new M-1000 family in its M-series mainframe line in Japan, dubbing the new machines Global Servers. The 26 models fall into three groups – M-1900, M-1700 and M-1500, and are claimed to offer improved client-server functionality, and price-performance two to five times better than current M-700 series models. Fujitsu also has PowerAIM for the new models: it is a new middleware product, an open version of its existing AIM database, which is installed at 7,000 sites. Other new products include a data compression function and a new optical fibre channel called OCLink. Fujitsu also responded to IBM Corp’s parallel database server with the PD2000, which will run parallelised database software and when attached to an M-series mainframe is said to accelerate data retrieval by between three and 10 times. The M-1500 models rent for from $4,800 a month, the M-1700 models at from $28,365 a month, and the M-1900 models from $350,000 a month; all will be available from the end of July. The parallel database query processor PD2000 starts at a monthly rental of $13,846. Fujitsu hopes to sell a total of 4,560 of the new M-series machines, and 200 of the PD2000s over the next three years. Fujitsu and Amdahl Corp are expected to join forces to develop a next generation.
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