It is difficult to accurately predict unannounced IBM price increases and unannounced product release dates. Both of which, over a 2-3 year ELA, will happen. Is z/OS v2 going to carry a price increase? AFAIK, that hasn't been announced, but to plan for a 2 or 3 year ELA at this point I need to plan for what that price increase might be and when we might migrate to it. What about DB2 v11? What is it going to be priced at? When is it going to be released? What benefits might it have that will drive us to install it when?
Really, my main gripe is that the IBM ELAs (at least as far as I've experienced, and been told) do not include price protection. Other vendors' ELAs do. Now perhaps some customers negotiate better and do get price protection included or even an avoidance of true-up included. From my discussions with other customers and IBMers, my guess is that's an exception that would be granted in a small number of cases, at best. As I said before, I see no benefit to an ELA from an MLC perspective. If an IBMer can explain to me such a benefit for MLC, I'd like to understand it. I see discussion about staying below caps and so not worrying, but to me that just means that you paid for x MSUs and only used 0.9x, which means that you paid more than you would have if you didn't have an ELA (from an MLC perspective, perhaps not from a PPA / zOTC perspective). Again, unless somebody has negotiated MLC pricing less than published list, which my understanding is not the case in NA. (Although some numbers I've seen publicly presented does suggest that "Solution Edition" pricing greatly discounts MLC. At least initially.) While I genuinely do like my local IBM folks and get along well with them, there is by necessity a certain adversarial aspect to any negotiated pricing contract. While I'd like to think that we'd always come to a fair and equitable arrangement for all parties, the fact of the matter is that my obligation to my employer is that I should work to secure the best deal for my employer. I would consider it an ethical breach to not do so. The same is of course true for the IBM employees. It is perhaps more complicated for IBM because there may be more intangible aspects of customer retention/happiness to consider. I have a great deal of respect for IBM, but IBM makes business decisions that are good for IBM. Such decisions aren't always ideal for customers. But that's the way business works: suppliers work to maximize their profits which requires balancing pricing vs customer retention and customers seek to minimize costs. Note as always, opinions are my own, not my employers, and not even necessarily the same as anybody else's in my organization. Scott On Mon, 20 May 2013 05:52:11 -0400, Richards, Robert B. <[email protected]> wrote: >I am in total agreement with Timothy. Whether or not you maximize the ELA >benefits is not the fault of IBM. The numbers are known in advance. You should >plan accordingly or have negotiated more favorable terms in the ELA >beforehand. Even if management lays waste to your planning, one assumes that >it would be for a good business (think unplanned growth and/or a new, >financially attractive) reason to do so. > >I wonder why one views their relationship with IBM as adversarial. It should >be a partnership. Then again, I am ever the optimist. > >Bob > >-----Original Message----- >From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On >Behalf Of Timothy Sipples >Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 1:14 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: Predict WLC invoice amount ... > >Words have meaning. "...Which probably at least reduce the intensity..." >almost never means *zero* worry. Why else would I have typed those words? > >Let's try again. Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs) still require SCRT >collection and submission. I didn't claim otherwise. How much you worry about >those monthly reports -- the intensity of worry -- will depend in large >measure on your caps relative to your utilization. > >I strongly disagree with the statement that "Tails IBM wins, heads you lose" >with ELAs. The ideal case is that you choose caps (a utilization >forecast) that are exactly as you experience. However, if you don't -- if >you're either too high or too low -- YOU STILL ENJOY ELA BENEFITS! You haven't >*maximized* those benefits, but you still come out way ahead unless you've >totally screwed up. It's a gamble, but the odds of winning that bet are >HEAVILY weighted in your favor. > >"Ask your IBM representative." > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Timothy Sipples >GMU VCT Architect Executive (Based in Singapore) >E-Mail: [email protected] >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to >[email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
