IBM is widely expected to come out with a further series of price and performance kickers for the 3090 mainframe family next week, all of them calculated to ensure that the company is able to report a triumphant fourth quarter out-turn in January, particularly in the US market which is proving so troublesome for IBM. Selective price reductions are expected, with the accent on memory, but some of the other forecasts are more bizarre, notably a Model 500 that would consist of a quad processor 400 with a 180 uniprocessor on the side, which would presumably be run partitioned into two logically separate machines that would nevertheless need only one set of software licences.
