In a bizarre announcement that can only be intended to kick its new PowerPC and CMOS mainframe processors partner Hitachi Ltd in the shins, IBM Corp late Thursday announced that there would be a new upper limit for S/390 Processor Group 80 set at 80 Million CPU Service Units, MSUs, and that charges for software on single image mainframes that exceed that rating will be increased. The policy effectively reverses IBM’s move last year to limit software charges for all its largest machines to those set for Processor Group 80. The odd feature of the announcement is that IBM does not have any machines that exceed 80 MSUs – the top-end 10-way 9X2 is rated at 78 MSUs. However Hitachi Ltd is preparing a new line of monolithic mainframes that will exceed 80 MSUs at the top end, and the announcement – which does not include details of the higher prices – is clearly aimed at the forthcoming Hitachi machines – machines on which the Japanese company is still hoping for an OEM contract from IBM to cover it for those customers for whom clustered Sysplexes will not be acceptable.IBM’s announcement says it is introducing a new Indexed Monthly Licence Charge, a new software pricing structure for single processors above 80 MSUs, which will be indexed to the total capacity of the machine on which the software executes on, in MSUs. The company says that the higher pricing will be consistent with that for software on its big Parallel Sysplex configurations but is introducing a penal rate of charging until the new processors have been rated to its satisfaction: it says software running on processors that are not on the IBM’s Processor Group Exhibit, or have no MSU ratings established for new Indexed Charge, will be charged the Indexed Monthly Licence Charge price for 200 MSUs. The company further discourages anyone considering the new Hitachi machines by saying that users with software problems will be on their own – Consistent with our current software support policy, IBM will provide program support only for errors that can be reproduced in a supported operating environment. Apart from IBM’s Parallel Sysplex offerings, there is no specified operating environment for processors larger than 80 MSUs it says.
