New York, NY — As Reuters reported, IBM Corp. announced that its upcoming line of mainframe computers has surpassed existing industry performance records. The company said its new G5 mainframe series will be able to process up to 1,040 million instructions per second (MIPS), or about 1.04 billion computer calculations a second. MIPS is the industry’s standard method for measuring mainframe performance.
The new systems are the reason behind IBM’s recent boasts that it is seeing strong growth in customer demand for its mainframes, which it expects to translate into improved financial results during the second half of 1998.
IBM said the performance lead of its computers should give it at least a year’s jump over Japanese rivals Hitachi Ltd. and Fujitsu Ltd., with its U.S.-based Amdahl unit. Both are manufacturers of IBM-compatible mainframes.
“The G5 Server’s performance ends the debate and discussion about who offers the most mainframe-class performance,” said David Carlucci, general manager of IBM’s mainframe division. “Our customers expect and demand technology leadership from IBM — and the G5 delivers in a big way,” he said.
Hitachi’s Skyline mainframe is considered the fastest single system now on the market, running at up to 900 million instructions per second.
IBM said the new Turbo model of its G5 mainframe line achieved the 1,040 MIPS performance rating using a single system composed of 10 processors. By contrast, Hitachi’s Skyline is limited to eight processors in a single system.
“This time IBM does have the edge,” said David Floyer, an industry analyst with International Data Corp. who was briefed by IBM ahead of the announcement. “This is the first time for a long time that IBM has recaptured the performance lead — and I don’t see that Hitachi will catch them.”
Mainframe buyers put high value on top performance, Floyer said, because it provides the machines with a competitive edge in handling customer requests. This in turn, should give IBM an edge as companies look to replace older mainframe systems.
The new G5 line replaces IBM’s G4 series, with top speeds of 440 MIPS, which was introduced in the spring of 1997. The performance improvements of the G5 allows IBM to honour its commitment to customers to at least double the performance of its mainframe in every product upgrade cycle, Carlucci said.
The standard version of the G5 is set to begin shipping in mid-August, with the “Turbo” version due in mid-September, the company said.
Floyer said IBM may hold on to its technology advantage for several years as rivals face difficult choices about whether to continue to build products using a mix of old and newer technology or license IBM’s own technology.
IBM’s mainframes are entirely based on CMOS chips, which can be manufactured at lower cost and are easier to work with, giving IBM decided economic advantages over mainframe rivals, Floyer said.
As a result, IBM is beginning to set its sights on makers of increasingly powerful “open-systems” computers such as Hewlett-Packard Co. and Sun Microsystems Inc.
IBM will have to ensure that the power of its mainframe chip technology continues to multiply each year, while also being prepared to cut the costs of software and services in order to remain competitive against these lower cost rivals.