Revenues from the Systems and Technology segment totaled $4.3 billion for the quarter, down 26 percent from the fourth quarter of 2012.
Systems and Technology pre-tax income was $0.2 billion, a decrease of $768 million.
Total systems revenues decreased 25 percent.
Revenues from System z mainframe server products decreased 37 percent compared with the year-ago period.
Total delivery of System z computing power, as measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second), decreased 26 percent versus the prior year.
Revenues from Power Systems decreased 31 percent compared with the 2012 period.
Revenues from System x decreased 16 percent.
Revenues from System Storage decreased 13 percent.
Revenues from Microelectronics OEM decreased 33 percent.
Ouch, ouch, ouch! Power Systems includes their extremely neat (architecturally, at least) AS/400 derived System i machines. Wonder how significant the loss in System z MIPS sold is, these machines are bought as much or more for I/O than raw CPU (which is I'm sure particularly expensive with these machines). For example, a lot of database queries/batch operations to get the set of all your credit and/or debit cards that did transactions at Target during the theft period.
To the extent everyone is moving to UNIX(TM) derivatives or using them exclusively in startups (OK, let's not forget Windows too), few learn at school System z and i stuff....
Well, I don't think much of the consulting business, but it's clear they had to do something, especially when pretty much everyone lost out to x86 for "big iron" in classic disruptive innovation style and as this move demonstrates they culturally can't compete in that market.
The System i was folded into the POWER server line along with System x (midrange unix) a few years ago. It seems like they're trying to kill both lines with one stone, sadly.
I could replace half my data center with a POWER box and manage the other half with it. Amazing machine if you ignore licensing...
Sadly, I'm old enough to remember the architectural beauty of the System/38, which is not to say I regard the AS/400 as new fangled rubbish. I treasure my copy of The Silverlake Project.
Like huge swaths of the insurance, banking and healthcare industries. (Current iSeries shop here - we are a ticket printing company) Construction is also a huge shop. In fact, iSeries is SAP's preferred platform, but the SAP Windows install consultants won't tell you that because they make way more money consulting on Windows.
Right, that's not actually surprising to me, I know banks still use mainframes, and I thought it was well-known. Same about airlines, and heavy-duty control systems (say, sewage control for a large city or something) that are likely to be legacy. I was wondering what could be organizations I wouldn't even suspect.
