We’re open to anything is the way IBM Corp’s AS/400 US general manager David Thomas sums up the new mood of realism sweeping through the Application Business Systems division. AS of course no longer stands for Application System, it is now Advanced Series. In the new version of OS/400, SQL/400 now comes bundled, and instead of forcing users to write stored procedures for the database in a proprietary language like all the independent database vendors require, these can be written in any AS/400 language – the new Integrated Language Environment C launched last year, RPG/400 – and there is a new IBM Visual RPG coming in the Integrated Language Environment, or Cobol, also set for a facelift. Database input-output performance has also been improved.
Semaphores
However, the most dramatic changes are in the planned embracing of almost everything Unix. Beginning with the new 3.1 release of OS/400 – early versions are due in August, with general availability in the the fourth quarter. Spec 1170 Unix application programming interfaces and basic Posix conformance will be added to OS/400 gradually – conformance to the X/Open Co Ltd Portability Guide is already scheduled. Of the Spec 1170 application programming interfaces, IBM says it will deliver file system and directory, threads, TCP/IP, sockets, security and authority, process management, shared memory, semaphores, pipes, localisation and thread-safe versions of C runtime routines, in phased introductions. Along with the ANSI C it already has, that should cover between 60% and 85% of the application programming interfaces actually used by the most popular Unix commercial applications, IBM reckons. It says it will work towards adding stuff that’s missing, such as shell and utilities support. To put its effort into context, recent estimates put AIX Spec 1170 conformance at only around 61%. IBM has already committed to adding Spec 1170 compliance to MVS next year. The company says the application programming interface set is too much of a moving target to be supported entirely. The Unixification is part of a general facelift that OS/400 is getting in preparation for the AS/400’s move to the PowerPC. IBM is currently re-writing the Licensed Internal Code that sits between OS/400 and the machine interface, along object-oriented lines – a project it believes could be the largest object development ever undertaken. Then it will move on to give OS/400 a microkernel. The Licensed Code (already re-written for AS/400’s proprietary RISC) will provide a degree of hardware independence that according to Thomas means PowerPC customers won’t have to recompile a single line of existing code. If that were a Unix vendor speaking, it would sound like famous last words, but Thomas points to the four CPU architecture changes AS/400 has undergone since its launch in 1988 – with no recompilations needed yet, he says.
By William Fellows
Staying on the hardware side, in keeping with the more aesthetic design traditions of the Unix vendors, IBM has ditched the AS/400’s institutional off-white, filing cabinet livery in favour of sleek black designs for the new models it has launched, some of which are rounded at the back to fit corners better. The four re-styled AS/400s are, as anticipated, PowerPC-ready, awaiting the PowerPC 620 64-bit implementation of the IBM-Motorola Inc-designed RISC architecture that will be available as board upgrades from next summer. In the future, Workplace OS will offer multiple personalities under OS/400 (including Taligent), so you will be able to have an OS/2 or Unix file system on the machine. A cursory glance at these directions suggests the AS/400 is on a convergence path with its AIX cousins over in the RISC System/6000 division: not so says Thomas, who maintains the AS/400 is a solution – RS/6000 a technology choice. The objective of maximising profits will be met only by maintaining separate lines, in Thomas’ view. In any case he’s more concerned with persuading existing AS/400 customers to stay for the ride up to PowerPC. In launching PowerPC-ready model
s, IBM will hope to offset the likelihood of customers delaying purchases until the new CPU architecture is actually available. The existing nineteen different software pricing groups are reduced to four. Users will be charged at one of these four levels according to their processor, plus an amount for each user. Processor group charges for RPG, Cobol and C are $2,000 each at the low-end, $18,000 on high-end systems. IBM says users will typically pay the same as they do now except at the low end where there will be savings. Most of the new software – some 3.5m lines of code according to the company ships in early versions on August 19 with general release set for the fourth quarter, though some, including Cobol and Multimedia Mail, is set for March 1995.
Advertising
The new models use existing 100MHz, 64-bit architecture – CMOS at the low-end, BiCMOS on the larger systems – and all but B models are upgradable to the new ones – out next month – which in turn will be upgradable to the 64-bit PowerPC 620 RISC sometime around next summer. The systems have been designed to evolve into 400MHz to 500MHz units and could potentially accommodate chips clocked at 1GHz according to IBM. The boxes support up to 1.5Gb RAM and 259Gb disk and 4,800 workstation clients. Up to seven AS/400s can be strung together. The new AS/400s start at $9,000, and the top model, equivalent to an AS/400 Model F97, costs $673,000-odd where the F97 had a list price of $1.2m. IBM reckons 50% of the 260,000 AS/400s installed are doing file serving. It claims 32 patents out on the box and is beginning a $30m advertising campaign for the new models. Research and development spend on the PowerPC effort has been some $1,500m. AS/400 revenues were down slightly over last year, and are between $3,500m and $4,500m, depending on which analysts you listen to. Operating profits are estimated at $1,200m on the line.
