While IBM does charge per MIP for their hardware, from what I've seen the real cost is the software, as it seems is the case with almost all hardware/software. I heard CA makes more then 2x off Mainframe software then IBM does off hardware which is why IBM has all that zip/zap stuff for decreasing the application MIP and increasing the hardware cost. I would be curious how software would be priced per real processor MIP or per virtual MIP. I can't really imagine who would want to run a large virtual mainframe anyway, sure there might be some 1 off app some people would like to export, but the vast majority of users, I just can't see it.

Formatting error: My bad
Last I heard US headcount was less then 100k while worldwide headcount was greater then 400k.

>Probably very close to dropping below 50% American employees.
IBM probably started employing less then 50% US employee's in the 90's. IBM is probably employing less then 25% US employee's currently. Last I heard US headcount was 400k.

What if the car companies started using a model similar to most hardware vendors in that they separate the hardware from the software within the product. For example you buy a Honda, it costs 20k for the car and 5k for some new product called an adaptive usage system, which can be the software that assists in the control of the brakes, steering, and engine. If you sell the car, and you have every right to, you are only selling the hardware the software must be re-licensed. You have every right to sell the car, I have every right to buy it, I just don't have a right to use it unless I re-license the software.

As the contractee you are not required to file the payment with IRS if it is less the $600. As a contractor you must report all income regardless of whether the contractee filed the income or not.

I do a lot of storage work and whenever the talk comes to spindle counts I've always wondered this as well. Since the only thing no scaling in hard drives these days are the rotational and read speeds adding another head could double the single drive throughput and IOPS. I've looked into it and found 100's of patents on the idea, and one drive from 1986 that had multiple heads, it had 8 if I remember correctly, looked to be the size of a record player, held 200 MB, and cost 250k.

I think this solution is quite interesting and probably fits their needs but comparing it to the storage solutions of the vendors listed is quite ridiculous. Another thing to note, there are vendors, NEXSAN, that sell cheaper storage systems, that while still more expensive then this, would have probably meet their needs. The first issue is high availability. There are many single points of failure on this box. There is only a single controller. The power supplies are not redundant. With the number of drives a single fan failure might lead to and high enough heat to damage components. Single port back plane. No NVRAM. The only thing that isn't a single point of failure are the drives themselves because they are in a RAID6 config but I still see a problem with that, their configuration uses no hot spares. A high end storage system is going to have multiple controllers, redundant power supplies, be able to sustain multiple fan failures, multiple back planes with interposer cards. It's also going to have NVRAM that should a power failure occur acknowledge cached data would not be lost. The second issue is maintenance. A high end storage system systems parts are high accessible and often hot swappable. A controller goes out, it's like changing a Nintendo cartridge. With this box if anything goes except a drive, the box is coming down. If you are a replacing a drive you'll have to slide the box out, hopefully you left enough clearance for the power cords when you slide it out, then you have to pop in a new drive, and hopefully not break the SATA connector on the back plane. Oh man, I forgot to put on a new rubber band, I mean vibration dampner. What's the performance of this box like? With software RAID and only a single processor with no ASIC acceleration for anything I would have to imagine the processor is going to get pretty bogged down. With a high end box everything is pretty much designed, within reason, to make the drives the ultimate performance bottleneck. Can this systems fully utilize all the drives or can the drives deliver more IOPS and throughput then the controller can handle? Extra features. What does this box offer in terms of volume copying, flash copying, and remote mirroring? The value of an enterprise solution is that it provides the features that keep it working 99.999% of the time, not just 99%. I see so many possible areas where data could possibly be lost or corrupted. A couple of comments have suggested this just being a block in a bigger solution, treating it just like a drive. In that case you are going to have to a additional layer of redundancy, probably a mirror. With a straight mirror you are going to see a doubling in cost of hardware, infrastructure, power and cooling, which is going to start disrupting cost/benefit of this solution. If you just want a bunch of file space accessible through HTTP with the ability to tolerate the occasional loss of data and downtime, this solution will work fine. If data loss or downtime means the loss of data or jobs, you'll go with one of the major storage vendors.

Your assessment says that US companies spend 15% more then Euro companies but doesn't address what I think the original poster was trying to get at and that is that the profits made on drugs sold to US consumers pays for drug research. In other words AmeriDrug and EuroDrug both have a blockbuster drug. Both drugs are sold in the US for $20/pill and in Europe for $2/pill. If the real cost of production and distribution is the same, say $1, both companies are only making $1/pill from European consumers and $19/pill from Americans. Both companies are also hard at work developing their next drug using the profits from their last most of which came from Americans. How true is all of this, I don't know I'm just speaking from the hypothetical, but from what I hear about Canadian drug prices I'm pretty sure there is a certain degree of validity to the statement, how much, who knows, but there is probably some sort of paper on it somewhere out there.

I have the Time Warner DVR and boy am I glad I rent and not own. I've been using the DVR for about 3 years maybe 4 and I can'tcount the number of times I've run to the Time Warner kiosk at the mall and exchanged a dead for a new one. Whenever I go to swap one out there are always several stacks of boxes 3 ft high or so of returns. On the bright side I guess I always have the best Scientific Atlanta box time warner has to offer.

My buddy had his truck stolen with EZ-Pass ( automatic toll payment system for those non-eastcoasters). He filled out the police reports and all the other crap. About a month later he realized the guys who stole his truck were still using his EZ-Pass driving around Jersey and they were going though the same toll boothes about the same time everyday. So he staked out the toll booth and at their usual time he saw them zip through the EZ-pass lane in his truck. So he went through himself and called the state troopers to report he found his stolen truck and it was on the turnpike. The cops were more concerned about whether he was using a hands free headset or not then getting the people who stole his truck. So he eventually followed the people to their house and called the cops again saying he was driving around and spotted his stolen truck, the cops said they would look into it. The next day he found they had done nothing so he drove up with another guy and stole the truck back with his spare key, which is when he learned it's a pain in the ass to get a car declared unstolen.