4 ms·

It sure makes sense on the server-side. That's been IBM's business model for mainframes for half a century.

• ianmcgowan 5y ago
  That's true, I had to pay IBM in the 90's for a CPU upgrade where they just dial in, change a config, and poof-more CPU. It was completely infuriating and one reason we migrated to HPUX. The hardware support from IBM was amazing though - the techs are very well trained and show up with basically another mainframe in the van and start swapping parts until things work.
  • bombcar 5y ago
    It's strange how paying for an upgrade where they swap a part feels much better than a faster upgrade they can do remotely. Yet with software we don't much blink (though I suppose people DO like to see at least some download after they click Pay).
  • landemva 5y ago
    IBM support was great. OTA CPU upgrade is convenient. A while back suffered with HPUX hardware software not dialed in. Was painful slow working through issues with HP.
  • technofiend 5y ago
    Dude, Sun in their heyday offered a similar service that allowed you to online more CPUs as needed. As I recall HP tried to as well. I mean sling all the hash you want at IBM, but at some point midrange people tried to do the same thing and for the same reasons - making it easy to capture every last bit of revenue and less enticing for you to switch platforms.
• detaro 5y ago
  Not just mainframes, on POWER servers they offer the same.