More to the point - in 4Q 2012, mainframe revenue was UP 56% (in growth markets it was up 68%). In 4Q 2012, IBM shipped more mainframe MIPS than at any point in it's entire history. And HALF of those MIPS were in the form of 'new workload' (Linux, Java, DB2) engines.

It sounds to me like you are confusing incompetent admins with bad products. You absolutely do not need IBM service people to install DB2 and have it perform like you want.

A mainframe is not a PC. You can not just buy an off-the-shelf mainframe, load some software on it, and expect it to perform as you want. Every mainframe is built to customer order, and there are literally millions of possible configurations. This includes not only obvious stuff like how much memory and how many cores do you want, but workload-dependant stuff like what speed should the processors run at, how many cores are dedicated to running IO operations, how many to DB2 functions, how many to Java functions, etc. It is up to the customer to understand their workload and configure the machine appropriately.

Then, once the machine is installed, there is more configuration to be done (by the customer). You must create your IOCDS to properly balance your expected IO over all of the IO domains. You must dedicate enough channel paths to your busiest devices, etc.

So, it is no surpise that someone who does not know what they are doing can make an unholy mess of things and wind up with an extremely poor performing system. Yes, IBM will help you fix your mess. No, that does not mean IBM produced a shoddy product.
Then, you need to define your LPARs. What percentage of the resources does each LPAR get? Do the LPARs have caps on them, etc?

Huh? The only thing that changed was what happened when an invalid sign digit was detected. In both cases a program check - data exception was raised, and the instruction counter in the old program psw pointed to the next sequential instruction. The difference was that in 360 the operation was terminated, and ln 370 it was suppressed. Terminated meant the state of the output operand and condition code were unpredictable. Supressed meant that the operand and condition code were the same as they were when the instruction started.

So, no âperfectly fineâ programs had to change because of this. However, some programmers who thought they were clever probably found out that âunpredictableâ meant âdo not rely on this behaviorâ. Perhaps you were one of them?

The first link says 'cases', but doesn't cite one. The other three are farmers who sued Monsanto, which hardly counts as 'Monsanto sued farmers out of existence'.

So an infalation adjusted house cost $35K in 1970? No, it did not. This is called lying - using inflation adjusted wages, but not inflation adjusted prices.

OK, so the inflation adjusted wage has not changed, neither has the inflation adjusted price. Why is that 'indefensible'? What more are people doing today than they were in 1970 that would justify them being able to have more purchase power? In 1970, a person doing an average job could by certain items. Same today.

Of course in reality the average worker's wage did not only increase fifty cents, those were complete bullshit numbers he made up. In reality, in 1970 the average income was $6186 (about $3/hour) and in 2011 it was $42976 (about $21/hour).

Where did you get those bullshit numbers? In 1970 the average worker earned $19.20 (I guess that is per hour). Well, according to the SSA the US average income in 1970 was $6,186.24 (in 2011 it was $42,979.61). So, if the average worker was making $19.20 in 1970, they were only working 322 hours per year, which is of course nonsense. In reality, the actual average earner was making about $3/hour in 1970.

As for your idiotic example of Circuit City, do you have the slightest bit of evidence that retaining the 3000 fired people would have made any difference to the longevity of the company? No, you do not. Circuit City did not die because they replaced those workers, it died because people no longer went to the stores, they purchased online. And you can't compete with price online when you are paying 3000 people who aren't resulting in any sales.

Every point in your post is wrong.

Under the Apple deal, there is NO WHOLESALE. The publisher sets the price the customer pays, and gives the retailer a percentage of that. Therefore, a retailer CAN NOT undersell Apple. Even if a retailer was willing to take a loss on the book, that just means the publisher gets more money, because the price to the consumer stays the same.

The agency model (which Apple got the publsihers to switch to) is like a real estate agent. The homeowner (publisher) sets the price of the house (book). The realtor (retailer) MUST sell it for the price that the homeowner wants. The realtor (retailer) can not sell it for less (without permission of the owner/publisher) and can certainly not sell it for more and pocket the difference. And the deal with Apple means that permission to sell for less will not be forthcoming.

Um, people who SELL ebooks in competition with Amazon don't produce them. Authors and publishers produce them. You did know that, right?

Putting pressure on your suppliers is not predatory or illegal. Every successful business pressures it's suppliers. Sometimes the pressure is cost, sometimes delivery, sometimes quality, etc. You may as well complain that the consumers are the real predators here, because they are the ones who want the low prices from Amazon, Walmart, etc.

Ohh, Wikipedia. Well, you got me there.

What is wrong with being a monopoly? Simply being a monopoly is not a problem, and is not illegal. What IS illegal is when the power of that monopoly is used to gain an unfair (anticompetitive) advantage in a DIFFERENT area.

It is dirt cheap to sell ebooks. There is almost no barrier to entry at all, especialy for an established retailer. Therefore, your scenario can't happen, because as soon as Amazon raises the price the competitors will re-appear. Yes, in some industries predatory pricing is a real problem. Ebooks is not one of those industries.

Are you really that stupid? Price fixing is when a MINIMUM price to the public for A PARTICULAR ITEM has been set. Since two publishers do NOT sell the same books, how could they possibly be in collusion? The price was fixed because Apple had a deal that NOBODY could sell to the public at a price lower than they could. The collusion was between Apple and the individual publishers. It was collusion because Apple said 'We can sell all the books you like, at a higher price than you are getting now. Stop wholesaling to everyone else and switch to the agency model. And once you do that, make sure nobody can sell your book at a lower price than we can'. If you can't see what is wrong with that, there really is no hope for you.

The point is not that 'Book A' costs exactly the same as 'Book B'. The point is that NOBODY can sell 'Book A' for a lower price than anyone else.

The collusion and price fixing was not between the publishers. The collusion and price fixing was the switch to the agency model and the guarantee that nobody could sell books to the public for a lower price than Apple. Amazon was using it's clout to force prices down. Apple was using it's clout to force prices up - for EVERYONE. As to the anti-trust aspect - there is no law against being the biggest at something. There is no law against being a monopoly at something. There IS a law against using the fact that you are dominant in one area to use anti-competitive tactics in a different area. It does not matter at all even if Apple had 0% of the ebook market. What mattered is that they used there dominant position in one market (mobile apps and iTunes) to make it impossible for anyone to compete with them in a different market (ebooks). How did they make it impossible to compete? By fixing the price.