OpenPower stands for the Linux IBM pseries ambition: Sales first

One month after the release of the P5 series server, in September 17, IBM released the "POWER activation plan" in the same location ", this action by IBM not only revealed its ambition to compete for the low-end market by creating a "first-class series" server, but also made it clearer about its support and optimism for Linux.

Optimistic about Linux

In fact, four days before IBM released the most important OpenPower product on the 17th, IBM released the OpenPower server globally. IBM believes that OpenPower is a revolutionary choice that will represent a simple economic model.

Although the theme of the Conference was "activation plan" on unix, OpenPower customized for Linux still attracted the most attention.

In recent years, the development of Linux in the world has not been optimistic as expected by the industry. Even if Linux in China shows a upward trend, however, the absolute market share of Linux is not very large. On this premise, IBM releases OpenPower more specifically.

Jiang xiyong, general manager of IBM's Internet server Department Greater China, did not conceal his optimism about the low-end server market. He believed that 80% of enterprises would purchase low-end servers. Jiang siyong mentioned that IBM is using aix unix as the main product line in the Chinese market. However, IBM discovered that many customers of this product line will open a logical partition on their machines to run the Linux operating system.

After such a situation, Jiang siyong re-analyzed the entire market and found that some user groups only support running Linux applications, and this user group is growing very fast. IBM therefore plans to develop a new product line around the world to optimize servers while users only run Linux. This product is OpenPower.

Of course, the survey data is also one of the reasons why Jiang xiyong is optimistic about the prospects of Linux. Gartner predicts that the most promising growth potential of operating systems in the world over the next five to ten years will be AIX, Windows, and Linux. Jiang siyong believes that Gartner's survey represents the opinions of some users. IBM considers activating Linux on POWER.

Jiang siyong also admitted that the direction of IBM was not changed at all, and this direction was established only after seeing the choices of many customers. "If a user application runs on UNIX, we will promote the power4/power5 platform. If a user application runs on Linux, we will promote openpower ." Said Jiang siyong.

Positioning is not vague

Before that, the full line of IBMP series products also supported Linux, and openpower is also part of the P series, which makes the industry doubt: IBM does not seem to have launched any meaningful new products, the activation plan is more like a market operation. However, this is not the case.

IBM has a great deal of patience with power products. Although openpower is currently managed by the Department that manages the pseries servers, Jiang siyong says "Everything is temporary ". Jiang pointed out that the future development direction of openpower is to re-establish a series. Although further positioning is needed, Jiang siyong believes that openpower has a solid foundation and a trustworthy future.

Jiang siyong also highlighted the specific position of openpower in the Chinese market. He believes that this position is very clear and there is no possibility of confusion.

"Simply put, this positioning still does not lose IBM's 'on demand 'philosophy, and all processes are still customer-oriented ." "That is to say, if a customer's server only needs to run Aix, then he will definitely buy P5. If the customer's server has the opportunity to run Linux and Aix at the same time, then he will still buy P5."

However, once the customer only needs to run Linux, IBM will promote openpower, because no matter the price, overall product information, or the source code and overall CPU, openpower optimizes the Linux operating system, and it does show that openpower has the advantage of running Linux in the open test standards published by IBM.

Jiang siyong pointed out that "if the customer considers Linux, we will push openpower, because we want to give the customer a clear choice, that is, if you want to choose to run only the Linux operating system, openpower should be run."

IBM believes that in the P5 Server user group, there is a great possibility of running AIX, and some Linux should be put on P5. On this basis, the IBM Business Opportunity is on the P5. Therefore, OpenPower has invested a lot in R & D in operating Linux, in terms of price positioning, product debugging, and virtualization functions. IBM believes this is a more accurate positioning, and is confident that it is the first in the industry to see the needs of this market.

Truly going to the low end

Although IBM saw the huge potential for purchasing in the low-end market, it also launched the "first product" through the "activation plan ", however, in fact, the p615 server has already had a considerable share in the Chinese small and medium-sized enterprise market, and now it has released an activation plan for the low-end market ", will it conflict with previous products and policies?

In this regard, he Guowei, Business Director of the IBM Greater China System and Science Department, said that IBM wants to use the "activation plan" to give users the idea that IBM is truly at the low end of the UNIX server market.

In the past six years, IBM servers have consistently ranked first in sales in the Chinese market, but there is still one reason behind this result: He Guowei is not the first in sales of IBM servers.

According to CBIResearch, IBM ranked second in sales in the Chinese server market last year. The sales volume represents the penetration rate of the product, which is the degree of possession. More data indicates that at least in the low-end server market, IBM is not doing well enough.

He Guowei was honest that last year, IBM did not have a series of products in the low-end server field of less than 25 thousand US dollars, and in terms of channels, IBM joined hands with large distribution teams and industry teams to penetrate the market. To change this situation, IBM has long been "Predicate" to reposition the product line.

Therefore, after the "first-level product" is finally activated, IBM can divide the product line into three parts: enterprise level, volume product, and block series. "Our goal in the future is to hope that we will be the first in sales and sales in the next 24 months," he Guowei said.

Of course, in order to realize the double champion, the launch of the "first product" is an important signal and symbol of the overall change. (Computer business intelligence Zheng Kai)