IBM Can’t Be Serious About Selling Used IBM i Systems

April 15, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are poking around the IBM website, looking for cheap second-hand equipment to run older releases of the IBM i operating system, you might think you are in some kind of a time warp. But fear not, it is not you. It is Big Blue.

Check out the two machines that IBM Global Financing is selling as refurbished systems:

These are exactly the same two machines offered up in January 2011, with the same i5/OS V5R4 software at exactly the same prices. These System i 520 machines were ridiculously priced back then, and I said so at the time. After the Power7 machines had been out for nearly a year, there is no way that the beefier box shown above was worth $49,225. That’s just a silly price.

IBM no doubt has second-hand machines of a more recent vintage with IBM i 6.1 or 7.1 installed. That is the machinery it should be showing, not rusty old gear with an operating system that loses maintenance on September 30.