RE: Ownership won't agree to an upgrade

Hey Bob,

Feel your pain.

If you still have a maintenance contract:
In talking with IBM and my business partner, they have both told me that I
can buy new hardware with an included 3 year maintenance agreement for less
than what 3 years of maintenance is costing me for my current system. (I
have yet to see any real figures however). If you are still paying
maintenance, you may want to check that out. True, there is an initial cash
outlay, but you might be able to spread it out over multiple months to make
it work.

Then again, your boss may have a plan to move to a different platform (and
can't tell you at this point in time) so he is hesitant to put more money
into the system.
I know where I currently am, a hosted system would not fly-and it is not a
money issue.

But, if no one is willing to invoke the $pend money command, you are up a
creek....

Just curious-IBM has told us that our 520 we can load 7.2 but not 7.3 (but
ours is a newer box).

Jim
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subject: Ownership won't agree to an upgrade

So just had a long meeting with my boss, the owner, about what to do about
our System i 520 running 7.1. The machine was bought in 2006. It cannot be
upgraded past 7.1, which we all know will be dropped from support as of
April 2018. The hardware will be dropped in Jan 2019.

I provided several scenarios, but my final recommendation was to go with a
hosted IBM i provider. But, that brings up other costs, specifically
license transfer fees of current software. And the boss doesn't want to
spend any money.

He has asked me to research 3rd party support to see if we can utilize that
beyond April 2018 so we can just keep the machine we currently have.

Does anyone know of any 3rd party support providers for IBM i?

What about a good used hardware vendor? Maybe I can convince him to upgrade
to last year's model.

Or a good recruiter?

Thanks

Bob Cagle
IT Manager
Lynk