IBM isn't in the business of paying ISVs and chip providers for support. They leave that to HP, per this article you are commenting on. Why is it again that you haven't upgraded to RHEL 6?
"Strange, I don't ever recall a version of Windows Server for IBM mainframe or for Pee-series"
True enough, Microsoft was duped like the rest of the industry and HP's customers by Intel and HP into thinking that Itanium was going to be THE Intel chip of the future. When it became painfully obvious that this is not the case, they dropped out like everyone else. No more MS on Itanic.
I assume Microsoft doesn't support IBM's platforms because IBM, unlike HP, is a technology company that *creates* their own products and is not willing to be a Microsoft lackey/distributor with zero IP. You can't run Windows on Apple computers either for the same reason. IBM or Apple could buy HP five times over for the same reason.
"Oh, and btw, Integrity's "primary ISV" is hp itself. The vast majority of Itanium servers that have been sold have been for hp-ux and OpenVMS."
Hahahaha, yes, I am sure CFOs, HR VPs, Sales VPs, other line of business executives buy HP servers because running an operating system (in and of itself) creates business value. Not! They buy servers to run applications which perform a business function (e.g. SAP, Oracle, WebSphere, Cognos, Filenet, Lotus, Exchange-Outlook, etc).
"NonStop, OVMS, HP-UX" etc, etc
- Dead, dead, dying.
"DB2, less popular than MySQL"
- Already addressed this point. You are talking about raw *install* count, not revenue, not enterprise implementations. I have MySQL on my laptop, so what. You might as well take out MySQL and use Excel. It makes as much sense.
"guess why SAP likes partnering more with hp than IBM"
- Do a little research? - Which company is the largest SAP implementation provider in the world? IBM. Which company is the "preferred" DB provider for SAP? IBM. Which company has the largest Unix-SAP install base? IBM. SAP started as a spin off of which company? IBM.... HP isn't a "partner" in any true sense of the word. They are an undifferentiated x86 pusher. Like Dell with ink.
"IBM would be worse placed to defend against it than hp as hp has development agreements with Oracle (the basis of the hp court case) which IBM does not."
- Haha, not in Oracle's opinion. HP is trying to turn the Hurd press release into a contractual obligation to support their legacy product forever. Honestly, a press release as a contractual agreement. HP has zero chance to win this case.
"Blah, blah.... HP is going to make a big x86 server"
- If IBM wanted to get in a race to the bottom in the low-margin x86 server business, they could certainly compete with HP. IBM, like Oracle, is a technology company. They do not want to make boxes for other companies technology to sell at distributor margins. This is comparable to when HP was buying Compaq so they could beat IBM and Dell in PCs.... IBM had already move on to businesses where they could add technology value.