IBM Cuts Deals on CPU and i5/OS for 550, 570, and 595 Boxes

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IBM Cuts Deals on CPU and i5/OS for 550, 570, and 595 Boxes
Published: September 22, 2008
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
We're almost into the fourth quarter and just finishing up the lastcouple of business days in the third quarter, and that means IBM is looking to cut some deals on CPU cores and i5/OS licenses tomake some dough out of the System i installed base.
Let's cover the hardware deals first. Last week, IBM announced apromotion that will run until December 31 that gives shops withSystem i 550, 570, and 595 servers rebates on processor activationson Power5 and Power5+ processors that are already inside theirboxes and in a latent state. (IBM calls this capacity upgrade ondemand.) The size of the rebate depends on the machine and theprocessor involved.
On System i550 machines, IBM is giving a rebate of $1,300 forcustomers who choose to activate 1.65 GHz Power5 core; oddlyenough, the rebate on faster and more expensive 1.9 GHz cores onthe i550 are only $750. (You would think the rebate would be biggeron the more expensive cores, making the discount percentage more orless the same. But IBM is clearly trying to give customers who werenot on the bleeding edge performance with Power5 boxes a strongerincentive to spend a little money.) On i570 boxes with 1.65 GHzPower5 processors, customers who activate a core in their existingmachines will get a $2,100 rebate, while those activating 2.2 GHzPower5+ cores will get $3,150. This spread is more in line withwhat I would expect. On i595 boxes, IBM is giving rebates on Power5cores being activated, with 1.65 GHz Power5 cores getting a $5,250rebate and 1.9 GHz Power5 cores getting a $8,125 rebate. With i595sequipped with 2.3 GHz Power5+ cores, customers activating cores canget an $8,000 rebate per core.
To take part in this deal, the i550, i570, and i595 machinery hasto have been installed as of September 16. Processor activationsare not apparently available for the new Power Systems i boxes,which are based on Power6 chips, or on earlier generations ofPower4 and Power4+ iSeries machines. But with some clever talking,IBM and its business partners can probably be convinced to giverebates on processor activations on these new and old machines inthe i family. Remember, IBM wants to have a good third and fourthquarter, and the financial services industry, which is big on Unixand Power Systems lately, is not doing so good right about now.
Keep this in mind as you consider the second deal IBM is offeringon System i550, i570, ad i595 boxes, which is rebates on the ioperating system as well as the i Application Server variant of thei5/OS and i platform that has the DB2 database deactivated. Thisdeal also went into effect on September 16 and runs until December31.
Like the core activation deal above, this promotion gives customersrebates that vary depending on the i box and what features theyget. In all cases, customers have to buy at least two processoractivations to get the rebates. The wording in this promotion saysthat it is available for the i operating system, which should meani 6.1, but IBM has started renaming i5/OS V5R4 as i 5.4 (much as itstarted calling OS/400 V5R3 by the i5/OS V5R3 moniker after it dida rebranding two years ago). And if you read down into the details,it says it applies to 5722-SSA (which when you look it up in IBM'sproduct catalog covers all of the V5 releases) and 5761-SSA (whichis just i 6.1). No matter what the documents say, at this point inthe world economy, if you have OS/400 V5R3, i5/OS V5R4, or i 6.1running on your Power5 or Power5+ machine, I think IBM would be andshould be thrilled to take your money and give you the rebate ifyou want to add some OS/400, i5/OS, and i workloads to your boxes.
Anyway, on i550 boxes, customers who activate the i operatingsystem on two cores get $11,000 per core in rebates, and those whowant to use i Application Server (for running WebSphere, PHP, andother workloads that do not need DB2/400 or its successors) can geta rebate of $3,500 per core if they buy licenses for two cores. Oni570 machines, customers who activate two cores for an i operatingsystem get $14,750 per core back as a rebate while the ApplicationServer variant has a $4,750 per core rebate. The same rebates aregiven per core on i595 machines.
If you are acquiring a new Power6-based Power Systems i box, Iwould have told you to demand the same discounts on processoractivations and i licenses for any additional cores you buy aboveand beyond the base cores activated in a configured box. As itturns out, IBM is giving a deal on i5/OS V5 and i 6.1 processoractivations on Power Systems machines, but not on the i ApplicationServer variant of the OS. This IBM deal, which also runs toDecember 31, is requiring customers to activate more cores than onthe older iron. On Power 550 machines, customers have to activatei5/OS V5R3 or i 6.1 on three cores extra, and then they can get$11,000 per core on the third and fourth core. (This results in afully loaded Power 550 box.) On the Power 570 box, customers haveto put the i OS on five cores above the base number, and they get$14,750 per core on i activations for cores number 5 through 16 inthe box. On the Power 595 machine, customers have to put i OS on 9extra cores above the base configuration, and they get $14,750 backon core activations for cores nine through 64 in the box.
To take part in this deal, you can upgrade from iSeries Power5 andSystem i Power5+ iron into the Power 550, 570, and 595 machines.

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