He is scheduled to introduce z/VOS Friday at the annual Share conference in Austin, Texas, during a presentation entitled "x86 Virtualization Technology for System z."

Mantissa says z/VOS will be the cornerstone of what it calls its utility virtualization product line.

"To my knowledge this has never been done on a mainframe, but always on some other kind of terminal server with an Intel architecture and not System z," says Clay Ryder, president of the Sageza Group. "I could see for schools or fixed function workstations. It would be terrific in there is nothing to touch and you can deploy those devices and everything takes place in one central location. As students or users leave, files can be cleaned or archived or whatever and from an administrative point of view that is a real plus."

But Ryder says the concept doesn't come without questions.

"What is the magic seat count number where it makes more sense to do this on a mainframe. And the Z is not the kind of machine people have laying around. There is certainly a lot to think about here," he says.