Re: IBM is so confusing!

[Pete Helgren <pete@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Do you see any irony in that?  The people who serve and build the 
customer base have the most difficult time with IBM administrivia?

And really, how hard can it be?  My difficulty is in dealing with the 
changing product ID and part numbers as the OS level changes and the 
product names evolve. They have a machine that can play Jeopardy but 
can't manage a simple date that triggers an email message?

I may be nit picking but MyEclipse is smart enough to send me a notice 
and even warns me from within the IDE that support will be expiring 
soon.  I guess I hold IBM to a pretty high customer service standard and 
for a small company like mine, paying $532 vs $177 per seat for RDp SWMA 
is significant.

Pete Helgren
Value Added Software, Inc
www.asaap.com
www.opensource4i.com


On 2/10/2011 10:20 AM, Vern Hamberg wrote:
> 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