On: Ask HN: What is the point of IBM mainframes?

[simne]

I think, this is because IBM is software/consulting company, and their software costs so much, that hardware cost not important.

And sure, big share of their business software, intensively use very specific features of their mainframes.

And as a last trick, usually such companies don't disclosure real prices, but when you buy hard+soft+consulting in one, they offer huge discounts.

So you sure, could pay their consultants, to write on Linux, but it will cost more.

[simne → simne]

For hard specifics, here people already said about memory protection.

I could add, I've seen x86 server from IBM, but with IBM chipset, it was capable for more cpus than any other competitor of it's time, and for some clients this was killer feature.