Power 795 "Blue Waters" beasts - Wrong.
The Blue Waters machine would have been a P7 775 cluster, not a 795, which is the large commercial system.
The details are a bit sketchy, but we can smell the hydrazine and it looks like IBM is getting ready to launch the next wave of Power7+ systems. Last week, in going over Big Blue's fourth quarter financial results, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge said that it planned to roll out more Power Systems servers based on the eight-core …
IBM are reverting to their 1990s mentality by thinking that just offering the very powerful and capable PowerSystems, they and their VARS would inevitably get good sales. However, without offering and providing a broad choice of compelling "third party" business software solutions that are compatible with this hardware, the plan was doomed to poor results.
In New Jersey, one of the larger solutions providers who are IBM PowerSystem partners, sell and promote considerably more "less costly" business solutions that are Microsoft based - as a platinum Microsoft partner, and therefore more Windows based X86 IBM or other brands hardware for these Microsoft only solutions.
IBM should be pushing viable non-IBM "cost effective" business software solutions that run on the PowerSystems via AIX or Linux. Many of these partners for PowerSystems are being financially rewarded for advocating Windows solutions "first", before considering IBM PowerSystems software solutions as a secondary option or not at all.
Some of my 'potential" PowerSystems clients have experinced this disconnect.