Re: Server shipments [was Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call]

Larry McVoy
2003-02-25T23:09:15Z

On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 02:02:28PM -0800, Gerrit Huizenga wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Feb 2003 20:17:01 PST, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 08:11:21PM -0800, Martin J. Bligh wrote:
> > > > What part of "all servers from all companies" did you not understand?
> > >
> > > Average price from Dell: $2495
> > > Average price overall: $9347
> > >
> > > Conclusion ... Dell makes cheaper servers than average, presumably smaller.
> >
> > So how many CPUs do you think you get in a $9K server?
>
> Did the numbers track add-on prices, as opposed to base server? Most
> servers are sold with one CPU and lots of extra slots. Need to dig
> down to the add-on data to find upgrades to more CPUs and more memory
> in the field (and more disk drives).

I included the URL's so you could check for yourself but I arrived at
those numbers by taking the world wide revenue associated with servers
and dividing by the number of units shipped. I would expect that would
include the add on stuff.

I'm sure IBM makes money on their high end stuff but I'd suspect that
it is more bragging rights than what keeps the lights on.

I think the point which was missed in this whole thread is that even if
IBM has fantastic margins today on big iron, it's unlikely to stay that
way. The world is catching up. I can by a dual 1.8Ghz AMD box for
about $1500. 4 ways are more, maybe $10K or so. So you have the cheapo
white boxes coming at you from the low end.

On the high end, go look at what customers want. They are mostly taking
those big boxes and partitioning them. Sooner or later some bright boy
is going to realize that they could put 4 4 way boxes in one rack and
call it a 16 way box with 4 way partitioning "pre-installed".
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm