IBM has launched the z13 mainframe for the mobile economy. The mainframe can process 2.5 billion transactions per day and supports real-time encryption of all mobile transactions at scale. The company said the mainframe included embedded analytics that provide real-time transaction insights 17 time faster than competitive systems at a fraction of the cost—supporting real-time fraud detection on all transactions and enabling customer loyalty programs.
IBM said the 2.5 billion transaction spec is equivalent to 100 Cyber Mondays every day of the year. Mobile transactions, the company estimated, will reach 40 trillion per day by 2025.
“Every time a consumer makes a purchase or hits refresh on a smart phone, it can create a cascade of events on the back end of the computing environment. The z13 is designed to handle billions of transactions for the mobile economy. Only the IBM mainframe can put the power of the world’s most secure datacenters in the palm of your hand,” said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president, IBM Systems, in a press release. “Consumers expect fast, easy and secure mobile transactions. The implication for business is the creation of a secure, high performance infrastructure with sophisticated analytics.”
The company also said that the z13 can lower the total-cost-of-ownership of a cloud system by 32% vs. an x86 cloud.
Don Clark in the Wall Street Journal reported that the new system will start at around $200,000, vs. several thousand dollars each for x86 servers. He wrote, “Analysts say attracting new customers is less important for IBM than keeping customers from defecting to x86 systems.”
