Reader Feedback on Allowing IBM i and 5250 Licenses to Jump Hardware
August 16, 2010 Hey, TPM
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Just to fill in a few details on your article on the IBM i license transfer. There has been a PRPQ around for years that allows a customer with P30s and above to transfer any IBM i license that is not considered part of the hardware (based on how the machine was originally ordered) from one machine to another within their enterprise. What is new with this announcement was that it came out of the shadows and is now a “normal” feature that doesn’t require you to know someone in Rochester. You can transfer from and to any 550/750 and above system in your enterprise, but you cannot transfer the license to a broker or another customer you sell the system to. They are not in your “enterprise.” So the impact on the used market is still negligible. At this point, you cannot transfer the license to a 720 or any other P10 machine either. You also have to separate 5250 enablement, which is considered part of the hardware by IBM from IBM i. You still cannot transfer the Enterprise Enablement feature (unless you have seen something in the August 17th announcements that I have not). IBM has reduced the price of 5250 enablement, as you pointed out. But you are not allowed you to transfer it. So, for instance, if a four-way 9406-570 (bought as a two/eight-way with one enterprise enablement feature) customer decides that a new 750 has adequate CPW, they can move the third and fourth license of IBM i (the first two are considered part of the hardware) to the 750, even though they are moving them from a P30 to a P20. But they cannot move their Enterprise Enablement feature from the 570 to the 750. They must re-buy it. It’s still a good deal for customers. But until IBM figures out how to separate the 5250 enablement from the hardware so it can be transferred also, it is not as good as it could be. And with the power that the 720 will have, it would be good if a 9406-550 customer could transfer IBM i and 5250 enablement to a P10/P20 720. There is the whole other issue on the 520/720 that IBM i is priced per user, which complicates things further. –Doug Fulmer, systems architect, Clear Technologies Thanks, Doug. I only know what I read on the IBM Web page, which I saw here. I interpreted a special RPQ that activates a single core of 5250 on the new Power 750 for $5,000, instead of the old price of $50,000, as transferring it from one machine to another. This table had a bunch of typos, which I fixed in the table I made for my story. So maybe IBM meant to say $50,000 or maybe it meant to say $15,000. The text accompanying the table on IBM’s site actually says that “this RPQ provides a free processor, feature #4988, which will activate one processor’s worth of 5250 Enterprise Enablement in an IBM i environment.” So it should be zero, not $5,000, as the table still shows on the Web and in my story. Perhaps IBM will explain this better on August 17, and even improve upon it. It would be great to see very low i 7.1 and 5250 prices for the entry Power 710, 720, 730, and 740 machines. This is what actually matters to the customer base, in terms of moving them forward. RELATED STORIES Some Details and Thoughts About Impending Power7 Machines IBM Allows i and 5250 Licenses to Jump Hardware IBM Slashes 5250 Enablement Prices, Other Power Systems Tweaks IBM Holds i 6.1 Prices Steady, Slashes Application Server Fees
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