Analysis of new pSeries announcements (Feb 15, 2006)

Annex Bulletin 2006-09 February 15, 2006

Excerpts from CONFIDENTIAL client edition

IBM HARDWARE

Updated 2/15/06, 1:30PM MST

Analysis of IBM Product Announcements

pSeries Adds Muscle, Trims Prices

POWER5+ Chips Extend Performance, Boost Price/Performance, Lower Prices

SCOTTSDALE, Feb 15 - IBM pSeries folks let their actions do the talking, hoping the customers' finger will do the walking - to their check books. The Power5+ Valentine's Day love message to customers, big and small, was a set of announcements that added muscle to the midrange systems, drastically improved the price/performance across the product line with the new industry first "quad core" servers, and lowered the prices of entry systems.

"With these new products, we have widened the competitive gap even further, deliver more computing power for the money for our clients and making it easier than ever to switch to IBM," said Karl Freund, vice president, pSeries. In a teleconference with analysts, Freund added that the new pSeries products deliver "absolutely blazing performances, the best price/performance and just great prices."

[snip]

The key to such success has been the "i" word - innovation. When the industry was struggling to extend its performance range with traditional chips, IBM's pSeries developers came up with the "dual core" concept. Now that the competitors are starting to creep up with their own dual core technology, IBM is pioneering with the "quad core" approach. Which is setting a new high water mark for the competitors to try to reach.

The p5-550Q model, for example, has been "phenomenally successful" in its first quarter of shipments (4Q05), Freund said. "We anticipate a lot of demand for these quad core models," he added.

That's how a winning game is played in technology businesses... faster, denser, cheaper = better. We have a feeling the customers' fingers may be doing the walking to those check books as we write this.

[snip]

"That's all she wrote," we're afraid, for those of you who are NOT Annex Research clients, who are now reading the complete Annex Newsflash, along with all charts which back up our story.

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Bob Djurdjevic

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Volume XXII, Annex Newsflash 2006-09
February 15, 2006

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