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  • IBM Lowers and Then Raises Ultrium Media Prices

    July 14, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Sometimes, I think that IT vendors are just trying to drive us all crazy. On July 1, IBM put out an announcement letter (308-800 to be precise) that showed the company had significantly lowered the price of its Ultrium tape media for various tape drives in the TotalStorage family of products. As usual, I went through all the feature codes, explained what they are, and built a table that explains how deep the price cuts were. This is why you keep me around, I suppose.

    Anyway, that table looks like this:

    IBM’s July 1 Ultrium Media Price Cuts
    Machine Feature List Price Price
    type number Description Old New Change
    3573 8305 Data cart, 5-pack 400 GB cartridge $349 $187 -46.4%
    3580 8301 Single 400 GB cartridge $69 $38 -44.9%
    3580 8305 Data cart, 5-pack 400 GB cartridge $349 $187 -46.4%
    3589 0820 20-pack 400 GB cartrides, with labels $1,416 $1,172 -17.2%
    3589 0920 20-pack 400 GB cartrides, no labels $1,396 $1,152 -17.5%
    3589 1020 20-pack 800 GB cartridges, with labels $3,202 $2,584 -19.3%
    3589 1120 20-pack 800 GB cartridges, no labels $3,182 $2,564 -19.4%
    3589 2820 20-pack 400 GB WORM cartridges, with labels $2,184 $1,414 -35.3%
    3589 2920 20-pack 400 GB WORM cartridges, no labels $2,164 $1,394 -35.6%
    3589 3220 20-pack 800 GB WORM cartridges, with labels $4,348 $3,018 -30.6%
    3589 3320 20-pack 800 GB WORM cartridges, no labels $4,328 $2,998 -30.7%
    3589 6020 20-pack 200 GB cartridges, with labels $1,026 $1,004 -2.1%
    3589 7020 20-pack 200 GB cartridges, no labels $1,006 $984 -2.2%
    7212 8103 5 200 GB cartridges, plus test and cleaning $476 $396 -16.8%

    All is well and good and right in the world, since IBM took a hatchet and chopped prices on Ultrium tape media by a lot–particularly for the variants of the tape cartridges that function like WORM (Write Once, Read Many) drives. These price cuts were huge for IBM–ranging from 17.5 percent to 35.6 percent, depending on the feature; Big Blue tends to do things in the 5 percent to 10 percent range when it does official price cuts. To do otherwise is to admit an initial pricing error, I guess. Or to admit there is actually competition and that the list price should reflect the street price realities. (I would go a little further and say that street price should be standard across all customers and actually be the list price, which means no haggling. But I am crazy. . . . )

    Anyway, so imagine my surprise as I am writing this story to see little old announcement letter 308-805, which came out on July 8 and which says IBM is jacking up prices on exactly the same Ultrium media features.

    Whoops.

    In fact, as this table shows, IBM jacked prices by 20.8 percent to 55.2 percent to get all the Ultrium media feature prices right back where they were before July 1. See for yourself:

    IBM’s July 8 Ultrium Media Price
    Increases
    Machine Feature List Price Price
    type number Description Old New Change
    3573 8305 Data cart, 5-pack 400 GB cartridge $187 $349 86.6%
    3580 8301 Single 400 GB cartridge $38 $69 81.6%
    3580 8305 Data cart, 5-pack 400 GB cartridge $187 $349 86.6%
    3589 0820 20-pack 400 GB cartridges, with labels $1,172 $1,416 20.8%
    3589 0920 20-pack 400 GB cartridges, no labels $1,152 $1,396 21.2%
    3589 1020 20-pack 800 GB cartridges, with labels $2,584 $3,202 23.9%
    3589 1120 20-pack 800 GB cartridges, no labels $2,564 $3,182 24.1%
    3589 2820 20-pack 400 GB WORM cartridges, with labels $1,414 $2,184 54.5%
    3589 2920 20-pack 400 GB WORM cartridges, no labels $1,394 $2,164 55.2%
    3589 3220 20-pack 800 GB WORM cartridges, with labels $3,018 $4,348 44.1%
    3589 3320 20-pack 800 GB WORM cartridges, no labels $2,998 $4,328 44.4%
    3589 6020 20-pack 200 GB cartridges, with labels $1,004 $1,026 2.2%
    3589 7020 20-pack 200 GB cartridges, no labels $984 $1,006 2.2%
    7212 8103 5 200 GB cartridges, plus test and cleaning $396 $476 20.2%

    Customers buying Ultrium media, which is quite expensive, might be tempted to see if their resellers had seen the second announcement yet. (I didn’t catch it until I went online to get the Ultrium feature codes, and it took me three beats to figure out there were two announcements.) But that would be dishonest. I find myself wondering exactly what IBM was planning, and when. I wonder what will happen on July 15 and then on July 22. Stay tuned.

    RELATED STORIES

    LTO Tape Drive Sales Increased 15 Percent in 2007

    LTO-5 On Course for 2009

    IBM Rolls Out LTO 4 Tape Drives and Libraries

    LTO Consortium Spins Ultrium 4 Tape Format with Native Encryption



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    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 17, Number 27 -- July 14, 2008

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TFH Volume: 17 Issue: 27

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • The i Upgrade Cycle Seems Par for the Course
    • The Power Systems JS12 and JS22 Blades Versus Other i Boxes
    • Gartner Revises HP’s Server Sales Downward for Q1
    • IBM Tweaks Power System 595 Upgrades for System i 570 CBU Shops
    • Lawson’s Q4 Profits Slammed by Investment Writeoffs, Sales Up Though
    • Micro Focus Acquires Liant for COBOL and PL/I Tools
    • IBM Adds New Power Systems to AS/400 and iSeries Removal Program
    • IBM Lowers and Then Raises Ultrium Media Prices
    • Agilysys Appoints New Board Member, Selects Special Committee to Weigh Options

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