Re: IBM is so confusing!

On 2/10/2011 3:23 PM, Kurt Anderson wrote:

So I've been hearing about paying for RDi 7.5 and up ever since it came out, be it here or at conferences or whatnot. It always felt like the message was, "You're already paying it, now it's simply split out." I guess that message was me misinterpreting someone (some-many) trying to sugar coat the message.

I appreciate the responses. Now I have a better understanding.

Not sure I get your point about sugar-coating. I'm one of the ones who has posted the most about this pricing, and I've been saying essentially the same thing since V6.1 licensing was announced:

As of V6.1 ALL the tools are split out to seat-based pricing. For a new customer, you can either get ADTS or RDP, same price per seat. For existing customers, you can stay with ADTS for whatever number of seats you are entitled too (varies by tier) or you can get RDP instead. RDP charges an initial changeover fee, which way back when was at about a 40% discount, IIRC. We lobbied hard for a free changeover, but IBM refused to listen. And now even that's gone; if you've waited until now, you must pay the full price.

Once you've paid that changeover fee, you're back to traditional costs of SWMA. RDP or ADTS, the SWMA is the same.

So, the big kick in the pants is the changeover fee for existing customers. IBM took a page out of the cable TV companies with that one; I still think it's taking advantage of the base. Those of us who had even the slightest chance of saying something IBM might listen to, all of us really did beg and plead. But to no avail. The only good news about it is that it's a one-time cost.

Joe