Nemertes Impact Analysis

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Framed for Antitrust? IBM Buys Mainframe Competitor Platform Solutions

IBM (NYSE:IBM) has acquired z-series mainframe clone maker, Platform
Solutions (privately held). If it passes the antitrust sniff-test, the
acquisition will end a series of lawsuits between the companies.

Often the home of massive legacy software bases, mainframes from IBM, Unisys
(NYSE:UIS), and others, though a small part of the overall computing market,
play a major role in large-enterprise IT. Vendors are repositioning mainframes
as server virtualization and SOA platforms. Nemertes' Service Oriented
Architectures and Applications research finds 50% of participants planning
to migrate their legacy mainframe applications to SOA, and another 37% planning
to wrap legacy applications in SOA facades.

Impacts:

Enterprises: Mainframe user? Integrate your mainframe, SOA, and
virtualization plans.

Vendors: Mainframe maker? What is your x86 play?

Investors: SOA and virtualization revitalize vertical scaling, but can the
legacy vendors make the transition or will it take a startup or spin-off to
create/capture the market?

http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/24560.wss [3]
http://www.nemertes.com/benchmarks/nemertes_benchmark_service_oriented_architectures_and_applications [4]

John Burke, Principal Research Analyst