IBM Creates Value Packs for Power 570 and 595 Servers

Published: May 22, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

When the iSeries and System i product lines were distinct from the pSeries and System p lines, IBM was perfectly happy to roll some extra goodies into 570 and 595 configurations to sweeten the deal. But the Power Systems convergence means unbundling the parts of a configuration and giving them prices, which means the i marketing folks need to roll those goodies into a separate package--because they certainly still want to sweeten the deals.

To that end, IBM has created Value Packs for the high-end Power 570 and Power 595 servers, which give customers software and vouchers good for the purchase of IBM services at a reduced price. The new Value Packs are available for i5/OS V5R4 and i 6.1, which are both supported on these new Power6-based servers, and give customers the entitlement to the operating system for a single processor plus an unlimited license to System i Access, IBM's client/server tool for linking Windows and Linux clients as well as wireless devices to i platforms. The Value Pack bundle continues the practice of giving high-end customers educational and services vouchers, too, but IBM is not being specific about the value of these vouchers in its announcement.

The Value Pack, which is sold under program number 5722-IVP, costs $69,000 per core for a machine in the P30 software tier and $89,000 per core on a machine in the P50 tier. IBM began shipping these new Value Packs on May 6.

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