UX, AIX, FLAYX...

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Liam Proven wrote:
>> How do you count "number of users" on a payroll system?  There's
>> probably only a couple of users, but it's the number of people who get
>> paid which matters...
> 
> Is it? Even if none of those people access said computer in any way?

Yes.  Without a doubt.

> I don't know any metric, off the top of my head, that attempts to
> measure systems' importance. What matters, what sets prices, is users,
> number of processors, number of systems, things like that. This is
> what determines sales charts and so on.

But sales numbers are by no means the only measure of importance.  If 
sales numbers were the only measure, then every mainframe would be 
replaced by a giant pile of PCs to take advantage of the economies of 
scale.  They tried that and failed miserably.

> Even if you measured the mainframes' /cost/ as an absolute, it would
> still be tiny compared to the hundreds of millions of PCs sold.
> 
> Take the mainframe away, lots of people would be inconvenienced, yes.
> But the same is true of those millions of PCs.

More people would be inconvenienced by the loss of, say, 5000 mainframes 
than by the loss of 5000 PCs.

Peace...  Sridhar