• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Big Blue Offers U.S. Companies U.S.-Only Support

    June 22, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

    Nationalism creeps into the computer business from funny angles. Who made the processors, memory, and disk drives in computers used to matter back in the 1970s and 1980s, and then when we moved to more global manufacturing in the 1990s, the name on the label of the machine and where the sales office was seemed to matter more, with the possible exception of supercomputing, where national security issues hold sway. With so much of the tech support now outsourced to India, and unemployment running high, support is now a hot button politically, and we all know how Big Blue doesn’t want to annoy Uncle Sam as it pushes its “smart infrastructure” agenda.

    To that end, IBM last week announced that starting on October 1, it will start offering something called Software Secure Support Via USA Citizens. This support option certifies that support for IBM’s software products (and any other software that the company offers support for) will be done exclusively by U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and that any data analysis and call center data will be contained in an isolated network maintained by IBM in a facility that meets the security specifications of the U.S. government. (Presumably this facility will also be on U.S. soil, by which IBM presumably does not mean Guam or Puerto Rico or the Marianas, but somewhere in the 50 states.)

    The Made-in-the-States support offering is available from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, Monday through Friday excepting IBM and government holidays, and it must cost more than standard service or IBM wouldn’t bother selling it. In the event that an issue comes up outside of these hours of operation, IBM’s Passport Advantage or Operational Support Services (SoftwareXcel) support services, which are not “secure,” meaning backed up by outsourced employees I presume, take over. The stateside service offering is being made available to commercial as well as Federal government customers, but it could turn out that state and local governments take an interest in Buy American when it comes to support and they demand coverage as well. You can find out some more details on the service here.

    RELATED STORIES

    Infrastructure Business Monopoly

    As I See It: Smarten Up

    IBM Gets Hybrid with Servers, Talks Up BAO Boxes

    Getting Dizzy from Dynamic Infrastructure

    IBM’s Dynamic Infrastructure Announcement Blitz

    IBM’s Plan for an Adjacent, Custom Systems Market

    The IBM Systems Agenda: iB(M)

    international Business (machines)



                         Post this story to del.icio.us
                   Post this story to Digg
        Post this story to Slashdot

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 18, Number 24 -- June 22, 2009

    Sponsored by
    Maxava

    Migrating to a new IBM Power System?

    Whether it be Power8, Power9 or Power10 – Maxava has you covered

    Our migration service moves data from the old to the new server without disruption while the business continues to operate without impacting performance. Our service avoids long periods of downtime and means businesses can reduce the risk of moving to new hardware.

    To learn more about Maxava’s migration service, call us on 888 400 1541 or VISIT maxava.com

    Share this:

    • Reddit
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Email

    Admin Alert: A Simple Save While Active Backup Program IBM to Offer Free EGL Tool for Web 2.0

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

TFH Volume: 18 Issue: 24

This Issue Sponsored By

    Table of Contents

    • AS/400: Still Kicking After 21 Years
    • Power Systems i Weather Report: Partly Cloudy Soon
    • IBM i Manifest Takes Root in Japan
    • Help Wanted: AS/400 Advocate
    • COMMON Europe: Doing the Math on Top i Concerns
    • : A Community of Common Interest
    • IDC Forecasts Server Sales Declines Until 2011; Blame X64 Boxes
    • Big Blue Offers U.S. Companies U.S.-Only Support
    • IBM Office Suite Takes a Whack at Microsoft Licensing Albatross
    • Custom Tailored Solutions for the Crisis Prone

    Content archive

    • The Four Hundred
    • Four Hundred Stuff
    • Four Hundred Guru

    Recent Posts

    • The Cloud’s Future Is So Bright, So Why Are You So Glum?
    • Most App Modernization Projects a Struggle, Survey Finds
    • COMMON Launches IBM i Security Conference
    • Four Hundred Monitor, August 17
    • A Slew Of Add-On Services For Power10 Systems
    • Power10 Midrange Machine: The Power E1050
    • IBM Puts The Finishing Touches On PowerHA For IBM i 7.5
    • Guru: Regular Expressions, Part 2
    • Get Your Security Education, And Not From The School Of Hard Knocks
    • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 24, Number 33

    Subscribe

    To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

    Pages

    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Contributors
    • Four Hundred Monitor
    • IBM i PTF Guide
    • Media Kit
    • Subscribe

    Search

    Copyright © 2022 IT Jungle

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.