On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 21:41:30 -0500 Alan Ackerman said: >I don't think IBM could legally charge different prices to different users. >I'm SURE their lawyers >would let them. I guess that was a rhetorical question on my part.
If they could show it wasn't to drive competitors out of business, there probably isn't a legal reason. They do it now with special bids, for certain class of customers. >But I think Tony Thigpen got it right: >Hardware sales >Hardware sales >and even >Hardware sales The question is basically, how many z/890 sales would have bought a FLEX if they could, and how much $ would have have cost IBM. Quite probably more than the renevue of the license. I suspect that brand dilution is also part of the equation. As David said, the FLEX doesn't have the same RAS. There are probably also issues dealing with coupling to external systems that get thrown into the mix, things z/VM doesn't always support. >I think that the only reason VM is still around is that IBM thinks it can help >them to sell hardware. I I suspect so too. >hope that's true! >On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 16:46:04 -0500, Stephen Frazier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>Our company is very willing to continue to pay version 3 price for version 5. >>If >>IBM were to offer version 5 at version 3 price to its current customers now >>running version 3 on flex almost all would take it. The fact that other >>customers with large IBM machines are paying much less for version 5 would not >>matter. When and if a company grows its flex box to where it approaches the >>size >>of a small IBM box, then having VM cheaper on the IBM box will make a >>difference. It will encourage users of large flex boxes to go to an IBM box.
