2 ms·

Have I been to your house?!

• classichasclass 9y ago
  Does that mean it doesn't boot? I will concede one point: it was not easy to purchase. I prefer to host my personal site on Power hardware; I started with AIX in the 3.2.5 days and I ran Floodgap on an Apple Network Server 500 for the better part of 14 years. I wanted to get a POWER7 to replace it in 2010, I budgeted $15k for it, and IBM wouldn't take my money. I couldn't find _any_ IBM VAR who would do an end-user sale because I wasn't going to buy the service contract. Eventually I found a reseller who was more than happy to take $10K of my budget for a decent 2-year-old POWER6. It had a backplane burp a couple years ago but otherwise has been pretty damn spiffy. I'll concede IBM has to do a lot more to get these systems into people's hands to achieve a critical mass and it certainly wouldn't hurt to make them cheaper up to a point, but the systems are out there, and you can get them (and find them). As a postscript, in my current job (a large local government agency) I was in the CIO's office one day and the regional IBM salesdroid dropped by. Just to needle him I told him this story and he gave me his card and told him to call him with any parts requests, any time. I still buy from the reseller, though. They've earned my personal business.
  • cwyers 9y ago
    He said he's never seen one, not that they don't exist.
  • frankchn 9y ago
    Even in your example, the barrier or entry is still so high — I can buy a very nice new x86 machine for $10k, instead of a 2 year old POWER system. I am interested in the POWER architecture, but not buy $10k worth of old hardware interested.