[dillab2]

This is a key part of IBMs strategy, since it seems that LPARs on mainframes are treated as hard partitions and do not incur the same "whole machine" cost as VMs. At least that is what IBM themselves say when asked what the target audience is for their Linux only mainframes, which seems to be over 50% just for Oracle.

I only have experience with Z and not as much with POWER systems, so I'm not sure if LPARs on POWER are similar technology or if they are just VMs. But if they are the same that would go a long way in explaining how companies plan to reduce cost by going with IBM despite the increased core multiple licensing cost.