I agree with everything you said. In addition, I've had a front row seat to IBM negotiations. IBM is not easy to work worth. In fact, we hired a consultant to help us with the negotiations whose main skill was his ability to find the "one guy" who could give us a break on some costs. IBM is also adept at squeezing the balloon. You may save some money on something but something else will cost you a little more. It seems like IBM decides what they want to charge a customer and negotiates to that number.
For years IBM has defended its pricing as providers of premium, secure, high performing and rock-solid platforms. That may be true, but if I'm holding the purse strings I might decide to get nearly the same strengths a lot cheaper with distributed systems. IBM's other defense is, "We're not running a charity here." That's true, but if IBM wants to expand its market it needs to become easier to deal with and a great deal cheaper. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
