In what is believed to be a cloud first, Unisys is going to offer its upscale enterprise-class ClearPath users a fixed-priced PaaS cloud, a model that flies in the face of the nickel and dime'ing that goes on in commodity cloud land.

Unisys already has x86-based commodity clouds on offer but now it's drawn its proprietary mainframe-style ClearPath widgetry, based on its MCP and OS/2000 operating systems, into the new meme beginning with a managed development and testing solution that will go for $13,000 for three months use of a soup-to-nuts environment that includes 25MIPS, eight megs of memory and 75GB of storage.

Unisys has a couple of other fancier configurations but it thinks this so-called basic configuration will suit 90% of its markets needs. And, to repeat, it includes everything: CPUs, memory, storage, networking, bandwidth, operating system, SDKs, maintenance, support and enhancements.

If a customer believes it needs more than three months use of the widgetry it has to buy another three-month block.

The company is starting with test & dev and means to branch out into production environments, managed SaaS solutions and data replication and disaster recovery. The production environment might suit smaller or specialized apps and large accounts that need an overflow environment.

The widgetry will be hosted in Unisys' five data centers where, it says, the infrastructure will be "over-provisioned."

Unisys has been using the test & dev stuff internally for the last couple of years to save capex costs but tidied-up the interfaces when it decided to commercialize it. That's what's taken it a while to come to market.

It says the environment can be used to develop or enhance native ClearPath apps, integrate SOA technology to create composite apps or add functions like business intelligence. The development environment can accommodate Unisys Business Information Server (BIS) and its Enterprise Application Environment (EAB)/AB Suite among other development environments.

The company already has some SaaS-style solutions running on ClearPath like its Logistics Management System where 35% of the world's airline cargo is tracked and traced.

Outside of Japan Unisys has 1,600 ClearPath customers and estimates that 5%-10% will immediately be interested in the ClearPath Cloud, which of course keeps the stuff relevant. In a recent survey Unisys found the test & dev cloud was attractive to 46% of the respondents.