Things VM is NOT

Some jobs are done better elsewhere

  1. The desktop is gone to Windows. Get over it!
  2. High volume transaction processing to thousands of terminals. Use specialized systems like CICS
  3. Desktop publishing, word processing: use PCs (but VM Bookmanager, GML good for large documents)
  4. High resolution graphics and animation: use workstations and avoid 3270 architecture
  5. (sometimes) very compute-intensive analytics. Some applications may be more economical on dedicated desktop systems. VM is very strong in this domain nonetheless. Workstations are especially appropriate when the benefits of reliability don't justify the costs, for example, pure research applications that can be restarted from the beginning.

Fond of VM as I am, I recognize that there are areas where other systems are probably better fits. It does VM no good to be pressed into service for which it is unsuited.

Believe it or not, I've actually had people come up to me and dispute each of these items. They use VM for these tasks and are very happy with how well VM works for them. My personal feeling is that VM is one of the most flexible general purpose systems available, and often does an adequate job for tasks it wasn't designed for. This makes VM a very attractive option when a system has to provide multiple types of service.

Certainly, some of these recommendations may be removed or limited. For example, improved CMS support for X-windows would reduce the objection to using CMS for graphics and animation, and the move to the Web and "thin-client' applications makes X-windows irrelevant. Nothing beats the bandwidth available with memory-mapped local displays, but VM systems with appropriate network connections can do pretty well. Realistically, client computing has gone elsewhere - but when the application resides in a browser, the server definitely can be VM.

On the server, numerically intensive computing works well on VM, and there are plenty of times in which VM is the perfect platform for this type of computing. As IBM reduces the cost of ownership for VM, and introduces more options through VM workstations and massively parallel VM systems, VM will be an even better fit.

Obviously, the dominant desktop system is a PC running some dialect of Microsoft Windows. There are obvious advantages to this platform choice, but IBM can still exploit its advantages of reliability and universal access. It's funny: I attended a presentation on the next generation of computing, which was going to provide wonderful things like universal access (you can get to your data, mail, and programs no matter where you are), robustness (your data gets backed up), economy and scalability (you get to use the computing resource you need on demand). It was rapidly pointed out that this was done very nicely on mainframes. As VM mainframes get to provide GUI access and Web services, then this can be true again, and for even more clients. The World Wide Web has already been called the 3270 of the '90s.

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