Mainframe and Unix are now engaged in a war to strengthen their market basis by receiving orders for the next generation system project from Korean financial agencies.

Due to the large scale of the next generation system project, accepting the order of the project may have quiet an impact on sales. Because of its costs-BMT and marketing-and the stiff competition that causes a drop in the price, however, the rate of returns would not be as much as the scale.

Nevertheless, to prove technological superiority for the next generation system project, both Mainframe and Unix make desperate efforts for receiving the orders. The winner will take advantages for accepting future large projects.

Even in this year, Mainframe and Unix have competed against each other to accept the large orders of the next generation system project from Kookmin Bank, Hana Bank, and NACF (National Agricultural Cooperative Federation). The competition will be intensified as other next generation projects of security firms such as SK Securities, Tong Yang Investment Bank, and Good Morning Shinhan Securities, remain.

Survival of Mainframe in the tendency to downsize
In fact, the market for the next generation system project has been divided into Mainframe and Unix. While financial institutions, which used Mainframe, tend to downsize by using Unix system, Mainframe emphasizes its forte to cope with the downsizing tendency.

The recent projects of Kookmin Bank and NACF clearly showed this division. While Kookmin Bank chose IBM's Mainframe, NACF selected Superdome, HP's Unix system.

In the case of NACF, Korea IBM, Korea HP, and Korea Sun contested by the result of BMT and the price. However, NACF, which used Mainframe, had a plan to downsize through Unix server. As a result, it chose HP's Superdome that had many experience in supplying large systems.

For Kookmin Bank, Korea IBM strategically emphasized the necessity of Mainframe. Korea IBM explained Mainframe's merits in the process of selecting the next generation accounting system platform by showing the result of BMT persuasively.

An IBM Korea official said, "the purpose of this test was to evaluate system's operation, security, expansion, usability for mass transaction management. The performance of Mainframe was important, but placing Mainframe in the center met with good results than using Unix server."

Stability vs. price
The downsizing tendency of the next generation system is advanced with various considerations such as integration and the simplification of maintenance cost. Despite its relatively high price and maintenance cost, Mainframe underlines its stability with its long history of use.

On the other hand, Unix underscores the downsizing effects that make it possible to minimize the introduction cost and decrease the maintenance cost. As a result, however, it has suffered from the cutthroat competition of price.

According to an HP Korea official, "because the downsizing tendency mainly focuses on lowering the price, it is important to secure price competitiveness. Due to unreasonable price demands, however, we have often failed to supply our products. We are making strenuous efforts to solve this problem."