Superior Support: One Of The Reasons You Pay The Power Systems Premium
March 27, 2023 Timothy Prickett Morgan
When you are advocating for the Power Systems platform, and the IBM i operating system on top of it, within your organization, you need every bit of evidence you can find that demonstrates the return on investment for that premium price.
Which is why we are pointing out an IDC MarketScape study that Big Blue just posted as a reprint on its download site covering worldwide support services for the global leaders in enterprise IT. You know, companies like IBM as well as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco Systems, Dell Technologies, Lenovo, Pure Storage, NetApp, Hitachi Vantara, Oracle, Juniper Networks, and Huawei Technologies.
In that MarketScape study, IBM is among the leaders for worldwide support services, along with Cisco, Dell, HPE, with Oracle, Pure Storage, and Lenovo on the line between major players and leaders:
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Nearly half of the companies polled by IDC said that improving the performance of the hardware and overall satisfaction with their systems was the reason they paid for support services, and faster time to resolve hardware or software crashes and easier incident resolution were cited by nearly four in ten of those surveyed. Reducing the number of technical staff onsite, reducing technical issues die to proactive support, and lowering the cost of operations for systems were also major reasons for shelling out the cash for support services. Importantly, according to IDC, support services were cited by 85 percent of respondents as a key differentiator when it comes to purchasing datacenter systems. (And we would say, for those who chose five, four, three, or two decades ago, for staying with that platform.) Having one throat to choke might cost extra money, but the consensus seems to be that in the enterprise world, at least, where there are not free PhDs running around building and fixing everything and each system is definitely more of a pet than a cow that is part of a herd.
There is not a huge amount of data in here, but if you are trying to justify spending on Software Maintenance or larger proactive services from IBM, every little bit of data helps.
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I’m always critic (to be in some sense constructive) toward IBM but I must admit that their local support service I think is one of the best in the industry. Confirmed once again when during a problem they delivered personnel and parts to us in the middle of the night using two cabs to reduce downtime to the max extent possible in such situation. This is why we keep IBM, and support quality is a thing that it is valued on par of tech (or even more!).
Added to that, the local tech people turnover is low, so, after many years, we know them by name and they know the company (not a thing of small value).