Re: IBM is so confusing!

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Pete

I do not know that IBM ever notifies its partners on the lease program 
about SWMA expiring - I've not seen at the last couple places I've 
worked. I just credit it to, IBM expects its hardware partners to handle 
this. Unfortunately, OUR BP is IBM Techline, and they don't do it.

However, the re-up charge for maintenance is less than civilians pay, as 
I recall.

Vern

On 2/10/2011 10:58 AM, Pete Helgren wrote:
> Not to add fuel to the fire here but I have encountered an interesting
> twist in just the past 2-3 years.  It isn't only initial licensing that
> appears to be a area where IBM has turned to recover some development
> cost, it is SWMA as well.  I have a developer lease so I get some pretty
> substantial discounts but the past three years I haven't gotten any
> notice of the SWMA lapsing and further, with the OS and *some*
> individual licensing of products it has gotten more and more difficult
> to figure out which products have individual SWMA and which are covered
> by SWMA on the OS.  Thus, IBM can charge higher prices for reinstating
> SWMA (three times higher with RDp for instance).  As a business partner,
> I sometimes don't receive an IBM notice when my customer's SWMA is
> expiring.  They have to pay for reinstatement as well.  Thankfully, the
> distributor I work with has a better system than IBM to notify me of
> customer SWMA that is expiring.  But, heaven help you if you deal with
> IBM directly and assume that they will notify you when your SWMA expires
> because they won't.
>
> Of course I could concoct some conspiracy theory but I think that IBM
> has no economic incentive to notify of expiring SWMA because they can
> charge for reinstatement.  Every software license program I participate
> in has some kind of notification system to alert me to expiring
> support.  All except IBM.  Seems like the only company that isn't
> "smarter" on this planet, is IBM.  Don't get me wrong I LOVE this
> platform and IBM support is top notch, but the systems that notify of
> expiration and allow us to pay for SWMA are archaic at best and don't
> reflect well on IBM.
>
> I don't know what your experience has been, but I have never received a
> notice from IBM that my SWMA was expiring.  I usually discover that it
> expired when I need to update something, as I just did (which triggered
> the rant)
>
> Pete Helgren
> Value Added Software, Inc
> www.asaap.com
> www.opensource4i.com