Call it “fun size” like those mini candy bars. IBM’s latest version of its System z9 mainframes starts at $100,000 for 26 MIPs (millions of instructions per second). That’s a bargain even in China, where IBM chose to make the announcement, underscoring its plan to aggressively target new economies with its old—four decades-plus—technology.

The z9 itself isn’t that old, but the architecture it’s based on is. Mainframes are so entrenched in big businesses that 60 percent of the world’s corporate data is stored on them. At $5 billion and growing, the mainframe market is ready for poaching, particularly in emerging economies that need to build infrastructure from scratch.

IBM’s news comes after Red Herring reported that Platform Solutions Inc., or PSI, plans to erode Big Blue’s virtual monopoly on mainframes (see “Insane In The Mainframe?” Vol. 3, No. 16, p. 30). IBM’s new Business Class z9 is a pipsqueak compared to the 600-MIPs Enterprise Class z9 that it rolled out last summer. But that system costs $1 million.

The smaller, cheaper z9 sounds ideal for the so-called BRIC market—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—which IDC says is spending like mad to build business, financial, and government infrastructure. The research firm says IT spending in those areas is expected to grow from $63.8 billion in 2005 to $107.4 billion in 2009—the kind of growth that could stir up a price war among vendors.

That could hurt Big Blue. IBM faces competition from Unisys and Sun Microsystems, which sell systems similar to mainframes, not to mention Sunnyvale, California-based startup PSI, which is sounding pretty feisty these days. PSI Marketing Director Christian Reilly claims PSI’s ability to run more operating systems—Windows as well as Linux and IBM’s own—gives customers choices they don’t have with IBM. “PSI isn’t just about price points,” Mr. Reilly says. “It’s also about bridging old-world architecture to new-world applications.”

Sun Microsystems

But while the new mainframes may be right for emerging markets, they could face challenges in the United States and Europe. Gartner also notes that IBM still needs to offer lower software prices since software makes up the bulk of upkeep costs. “Even with price reductions,” Gartner analysts John R. Phelps and Mike Chuba say in a report, “IBM still faces an uphill battle for new users outside of emerging markets.” Bite-sized they may be, but these mainframes can still take a chomp out of your software budget

Rising Sun

It’s not exactly a shining city on a hill. But a new solar plant being built on a sunny, 150-acre hillside near a dusty town 124 miles southeast of the Portuguese capital of Lisbon will mark an important move forward in the development of solar energy. The 11-megawatt facility is small compared to fossil fuel-powered plants that can easily crank out 300 megawatts. But when it is completed in January 2007 the Serpa, Portugal, plant will be the world’s largest photovoltaic solar plant.

The Serpa project—recently announced by GE Energy Financial Services and two renewable energy firms—is the latest in a number of big deals rippling through the solar supply chain, says CLSA Asia-Pacific analyst Michael Rogol. The Israeli government is building a 100-megawatt solar power plant to supply electricity to homes in southern Israel, and could eventually expand the project to a whopping 500 megawatts. “Each of them individually doesn’t really matter that much, but when you piece them together, what you see is this stunning quilt of demand,” Mr. Rogol says.

The Serpa project illustrates the growth of the solar power ecosystem. It will include 52,000 monocrystalline photovoltaic solar modules from a variety of manufacturers in addition to PowerLight’s PowerTracker, a technology that tracks the sun throughout the day. PowerLight, based in Berkeley, California, says the technology generates more electricity than conventional fixed-mount systems. The plant will top today’s largest. PowerLight also designed the 10-megawatt, €49.5-million ($62-million) Bavaria Solarpark in Muehlhausen, Germany, with modules from Sharp Electronics. Catavento, a renewable energy company in Lisbon, Portugal, developed the Serpa project and will manage it.

The solar plant will be Portugal’s first, but it also marks a milestone in the financing of solar projects. GE Energy Financial Services, based in Stamford, Connecticut, will own and finance the $75-million plant. The deal is GE’s first solar power project in Europe, and puts the conglomerate’s renewable energy portfolio close to the $1-billion mark, says Alex Urquhart, CEO of GE Energy Financial Services. It may be a small piece of the overall energy business, but a billion dollars is big money no matter how you look at it.

Would You Like XP With That?

Running Windows on a Macintosh using Apple’s Boot Camp software is one thing, but for some, that means a potentially uncomfortable installation process. So ExperCom, a Logan, Utah-based independent Apple specialist, now offers Windows XP with any Intel-based Macintosh for $199. The company will then install the software on the computer before it ships, making it Windows-ready out of the box. XP from a Mac specialist? ExperCom gives one small disclaimer. “We don’t know much about Windows—we’re all Mac guys,” says Greg Ellis, a manager at the company’s store in Logan. “Once [XP] is on there, you’re on your own.” Welcome to the club, Mac users.