IBM Italy Helps Push Power Systems Gear With Rebate Deals

January 28, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Last week in The Four Hundred, I told you about a deal that IBM was offering in Europe to Power Systems resellers who peddled ISV software on top of the systems. As it turns out, IBM Italy has another similar deal aimed at getting customers to upgrade to new Power Systems machines using Power7 processors, and in one special case, a Power6+ server.

In announcement letter ZA132-1014, which was announced on January 15 and then amended on January 23 (when I actually saw it pop up in the increasingly crazy IBM announcement database), IBM is offering rebates to customers who are replacing vintage Power iron (in either the OS/400-i side of the box or the AIX side) rebates if they buy new Power7 machinery or in some cases even Power 520 machines based on the Power6+ processor. The rebate scales depending on the size of the new machine you buy, from a low of €1,000 on a Power 520 (with one core) and a Power 710 or 720 with four cores to a high of €4,500 on a Power 750.

Like many other deals that IBM does, the rebate in the Italian deal is based on taking out an old AS/400 or RS/6000 box (or their progeny) running PowerPC, Power2, Power3, Power4, Power5, Power5+, Power6, and even Power6+ iron. Hewlett-Packard‘s HP 9000 and Integrity servers, Sun Microsystems Sun Fire and Netra machines (which predate the Oracle acquisition three years ago) as well as some Fujitsu Sparc Enterprises boxes that were resold by Sun and Oracle can be taken out under the deal; so can Fujitsu Primergy X86 and PrimeQuest Itanium boxes.

This is the normal shape of the deal from IBM. But there is an interesting twist. If a solution provider in Italy is peddling a new box to a new customer, they can also submit paperwork to get the rebate as well, and the partner is expected to pass the rebate on to the new customer. In this case, IBM Italy is offering up three machines that can take advantage of the deal, with their own rebates. If partners peddle a Power 520 with a single core–which is a very popular box in Europe and which is still in stock at distributors–and if it is running IBM i, then IBM will fork over €1,500. If newbies get a Power 710 or Power 720, then IBM will shell out €3,000, which is considerably more than it is offering existing customers or those replacing competitive gear.

Although this Italian deal was announced on January 15, it is retroactive to January 1. It runs out on March 31.

And if you are doing a deal anywhere else on Earth, you need to do two things. The first is to get your hands on the Power7+ announcements, and the second is to insist on the same deal as companies in Italy are being given. Unless, of course, IBM or one of its resellers is already giving you a better deal.