IBM Adds Power7+ Servers To Long-Running Rebate Deals

May 20, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

With new Power7+ entry and midrange servers fully ramped and Big Blue well into its second quarter, it is time to add the new Power Systems machines to more deals, and that is precisely what IBM has done.

In announcement letter 313-040, the Power 710+, Power 720+, Power 730+, and Power 740+ entry machines are now part of the Power Systems First-In-Location rebate offering, which gives customers a cash rebate if they are installing their first Power Systems machine along with pre-qualified application software from independent software vendors. Power 750+ and Power 760+ midrange boxes are also now eligible for the rebates. The First-In-Location rebates range from a low of $500 on small single-socket Power7 blade servers to a high of $140,000 on a loaded-up Power 795 big bad box. There are 131 vendors whose software is eligible for this rebate.

The last time this deal was updated was on June 21 last year, when IBM amended the deal to say customers could not pass their rebates off to someone else.

In announcement letter 313-041, which was also updated last June so people could not pass around the rebates, IBM is updating its Power Systems Competitive Migration rebate offering, which is older than dirt and modified more times than I can keep track of. (I would bet there is a System/38 deal like this somewhere on the books. OK, I am joking.) With this deal, you buy a new Power7 and now Power7+ machine and migrate an ISV application from a non-IBM platform to a Power Systems box and then IBM gives you a rebate. In this case, the same exact machines apply and the same rebates prevail as the deal above, and you might be asking yourself why this is the case. Because IBM could decide to change the competitive ISV software takeout deal and make it more attractive than new installs of Power iron, or do the opposite, as marketing conditions dictated. The same exact 131 ISVs are eligible in the second deal.