Unisys Seizes The DayUnisys Seizes The Day

Microsoft's April launch of 64-bit Windows Server 2003 meshes well with Unisys' vision of Windows-based mainframe servers. Although IBM offers Intel-based servers that can scale above eight processors, Unisys is a leader in scalable systems that support Windows; its ClearPath servers can run as many as 32 Intel Xeon or Itanium chips, scale on demand, and allocate and reallocate workloads to different processors depending upon use. Kevin McHugh, Unisys' VP of platform marketing, says being able to spread large jobs out over a group of processors or concentrate those computations on just a few processors gives companies the flexibility to deal with heavy transaction workloads during the day as well as more quickly process transactions at night, when loads tend to slow down. Three-quarters of Unisys' ES7000 line of high-end Intel-based servers, which let companies scale their Windows systems to more than eight processors, ship with 16 or more processors, McHugh says.

Capacity on demand and the ability to run multiple operating systems on one server at the same time using Unisys' Cellular MultiProcessing architecture--including the vendor's proprietary MCP and OS 2200 platforms--led Community First Bankshares Inc. to upgrade to Unisys ClearPath Plus Libra Model 180 and ES7000 servers, says Dan Fisher, CIO of Community First. The financial-services provider, with 139 offices, has been a Unisys server customer since 1988. "Open systems is now a de facto requirement when you buy equipment," he says. "Libra was a leap in the direction of open systems for Unisys."

Though Fisher knows he could run Windows Server 2003, he's not interested in the operating system because of Microsoft's approach to licensing. Microsoft "has alienated most of their large customers because of the pricing policy," he says. Instead, Community First is taking advantage of Unisys' openness to develop apps that run on Linux, in addition to Unisys' proprietary operating systems.

Yet it's clear that the biggest growth opportunities for Unisys will come from services, and the vendor expects Business Blueprinting to be a big part of that. Unisys has 15,000 services employees worldwide dedicated to Enterprise Transformation Services, and about half of them are involved in supporting or delivering the blueprinting services alone, says Fred Dillman, the company's VP of technology and architecture. That service speaks to the belief that business has moved away from major projects that reengineer legacy systems out of existence. "Organizations can't just rip out legacy systems," he says. "If you can attack 10% to 20% of the problem a year, you can reduce this infrastructure cost."

A gradual migration of a legacy system's core functionality to a new system is more likely to have a measurable return on investment than an expensive transformation project, in which the whole application is reengineered at once, says Mark Vanston, a Meta Group analyst. Legacy Cobol systems "are still useful in terms of transaction rates," Vanston says. "In some cases, these systems are pretty hard to move away from."

Developing new services such as its Business Blueprinting takes money and resources, and Unisys has cut its research and development budget from $331.5 million in 2001 to $273.3 million in 2002. Will that hamper its ability to go forward on other innovations?

Weinbach says no. The company is saving by no longer having to develop for multiple platforms, as it standardized in 2002 on Cellular MultiProcessing. The CMP architecture lets Unisys run a combination of Linux, Unix, and Windows, along with the company's OS 2200 or MCP operating systems, on the same server. Also, the use of offshore application development is driving down costs. Weinbach expects Unisys to have 1,000 offshore workers by the end of this year doing application development and maintenance, and about another 250 working with it on business-process outsourcing, Unisys' fastest-growing services business.

As the industry consolidates, Unisys plans to be one of the survivors, thanks to its global presence and end-to-end capabilities, Weinbach says. "We can do consulting, systems integration, and consulting can build the blueprints, we have the infrastructure capability, we can do the outsourcing, and yes, if you want, we can sell you hardware," he says. "That's what I call end to end." --with Charles Babcock and Jennifer Zaino

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Photo by Bill Cramer