IBM Tweaks Power Systems Trade-In Deal, Yet Again

June 13, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in February, IBM yanked a whole bunch of different trade-in deals it had in place for its Power Systems server lineup. But a long-running trade-in deal is aimed at getting old iSeries, System i, pSeries, and System p servers unplugged–as well as machines from its Unix and proprietary systems competitors–and replaced with modern Power gear.

The last time this particular Power Systems trade-in deal was resurrected was in announcement letter 311-078 on March 22. IBM gave trade-in credit ranging from $250 to $8,000 on vintage and more recent entry iSeries and System i machines. Multiple machines could be consolidated onto new Power6, Power6+, or Power7 iron, with trade-in caps per box set at between $500 and $120,000, depending on the size of the Power System machine you bought. On April 5, in announcement letter 311-042, IBM added Power 520 machines top the list of boxes that could be replaced under the deal.

Last week, in announcement letter 311-078, dated June 7, IBM made a few more substantial changes for the deal.

The first one is that it removed all the Power6 and Power6+ machines that you could buy under this deal and get the trade-ins. There is an exception here, of course. (Isn’t there always?) IBM is still letting customers buy Power6-based Power 595 machines under this deal. Go figure. There must still be some of these in the barn somewhere. But generally speaking, where most IBM i customers shop, they can only get Power7-based gear under this deal.

Second, IBM added the PS7XX series of blade servers to the mix of machines that you can buy under this deal as you get rid of vintage stuff.

Third, you now have nine months to ship the vintage gear back to Big Blue instead of six months.

And finally, IBM changed some of the machinery you can get rid of under this deal. Specifically, IBM removed Fujitsu‘s PrimeQuest Itanium-based machines. I am not sure why, but what I can tell you is that Fujitsu was never a particularly strong supporter of Intel‘s Itanium processor and I can’t remember the last time I wrote about the PrimeQuest machines. IBM added a bunch of Itanium-based machines to the replaced machine list, so don’t get the wrong idea–IBM still hates Itanium machines. Specifically, now Hewlett-Packard‘s entry rx1600 and rx2600 machines and midrange rx4600, rx5670, and rx6600 machines can be replaced. HP’s very old PA-RISC Unix machines have been removed from the eligible player list, but some Itanium-based Altix machines from Silicon Graphics were added.

If history is any guide, this deal will change as the year rolls on, perhaps with better trade-ins in the third quarter to help boost sales if the economic jitters slow down business.