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I'll be honest I haven't seeked out how Watson X is being projected externally, and don't know much about the details internally - it's being driven by a differ

I'll be honest I haven't seeked out how Watson X is being projected externally, and don't know much about the details internally - it's being driven by a different division of the company. So even if I were in the position to comment, I don't believe I have anything meaningful to say there. You touched on a point I meant to add - reliability. Something that sets the Z mainframe apart from the Power server is the unyielding quest for absolutely no downtime (in exchange for compromise in raw compute/memory per drawer vs Power). I believe the quoted number is 3 seconds per year maximum. Because having huge throughput is well and good for business, but lost transactions could really strike at the bottom line with an unpredictable ripple effect. And in the case that a network of major hospitals is using the mainframe - no downtime could potentially save lives.

jacquesm 3y ago
Exactly. I worked for a bank (using IBM hardware, as well as Sperry) in the good old days and back then the reliability factor is what drove each and every major purchase. Tandem made their whole business case around that. When the computers and the IT department surrounding them are a small rounding error on the total budget of your organization it makes sense to go for a solution like that and I guess there will always be customers that need that. Consider me convinced: IBM will still be around in 2035, or at least, the mainframe division will be. It also puts their RedHat acquisition in a different light, so thank you for that bit of insight.