Re: IBM Rational Business Developer Extension (new EGL tooling)

Vernon Hamberg wrote:

10. Re: IBM Rational Business Developer Extension (new EGL
tooling) (Vernon Hamberg)

date: Fri, 18 May 2007 07:35:44 -0500

You really need to go to your business partner - the one who sold you
the iSeries and the software on it. The Rational sites at IBM have
very little relationship to how we get the development products - the
price of RBDE there have nothing to do with us in the iSeries world -
everything we do is based on licensed products - nothing at Rational
is based on licensed products.

Excellent advice, Vern, about going to your Business Partner.

Unless you don't have one, that is.

IBM sold me my 170 and also directly sold me my original Software Subscription and Hardware Maintenance contracts -- both were 3 year pre-pays. When they came due for renewal, I converted SS to SWMA, and extended it (and HWMA) another three years. Again, directly through my IBM rep (apparently in Atlanta).

However, the extensions were incredibly difficult, taking months even to get to the point of getting the proper items listed. And getting a determination on how to get the payments to IBM...?

It all got settled satisfactorily, i.e., in terms of what was covered and in getting payment handled. But much of that was simply to get prepared for the next step -- adding a new entitlement to the SWMA contract. The entitlement is sitting there against my customer number, but no one at IBM seems to have any idea what to do with it. If I can't get it under SWMA, it's practically useless to have an "entitlement".

So, your advice to go to a BP is as good as advice gets. Wish I could do that.

I called IBM about it and was told how to determine the appropriate BP. You contact a particular group in IBM, send your customer number and general account info, and that group sends back contact info for the BP you should be working with in your region.

If anything ever comes back out of that particular IBM black hole, maybe I'll have a BP. It can't be worse than dealing with IBM.

I don't understand why they sold everything to me directly in the first place if they had no transition plan for customers.

Sigh.

Tom Liotta