Lots Of Unanswered Questions On IBM i Subscriptions
February 19, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan
Like all of you, we have been watching with great interest as Big Blue transitions the IBM i software stack and Power10 hardware to cloud-like, utility-style subscription pricing. We have watched how each part of the IBM i stack has been transformed from the perpetual (and sometimes user) license pricing scheme with Software Maintenance to a subscription.
As far as we know, and as we reported back in September 2023 when the subscription pricing for the IBM i P05 and P10 software tiers was revealed, March 26, 2024, is supposed to be the last day you will be able to get new perpetual licenses and Software Maintenance on these systems on new Power10 systems. That’s a little more than a month from now.
On Thursday last week, which was February 15, IBM published an update to the IBM i Business Transformation FAQ, which we have never seen before and for all we all we know, this is the first time this FAQ has been published. On Friday evening, which was February 16, as we were writing this story, Big Blue took the IBM i subscription pricing FAQ document down and said it would be updated and republished later that day. It was already pretty late in the day (past 10 PM Eastern) when we saw the document was being changed. (We downloaded it and you can see the February 15 document here.)
That document confirmed that March 26 date for the withdrawal of what we call perpetual licenses for IBM i in the P05 and P10 tiers and what Big Blue is calling “non-expiring licenses.” No one has ever called perpetual licenses this in our three and a half decades in the IBM midrange, and it is curious why IBM is using this different language.
In any event, this clause was added or changed in the FAQ:
When you look at the PDF file we found and allowed you to download from our site, any changes that were done on February 15 were highlighted in blue.
As you can see, and as IBM promised, there is a mechanism to convert perpetual IBM i licenses to subscription licenses. What is new here is the confirmation that you can transfer perpetual licenses and their IBM i entitlements to a different machine and you can also add more core and user entitlements to an existing Power Systems machine as you need to. These conversions from perpetual to subscription licenses and the transfers of perpetual licenses across machines or adding more cores or users to a perpetual license are all slated to be available after May 7. The wording did not say “on May 7, 2024” but rather after this time, which frankly could be any time between May 8 and eternity.
IBM has promised that it will bring subscription pricing for the IBM i stack to the P20 and P30 software tiers. But on Valentine’s Day last year (February 14, 2023), as far as we know Big Blue did announce pricing for the IBM i stack on the P20 and P30 tiers, and we built all kinds of spreadsheets to show how the perpetual and subscription licenses compared to each other in terms of economics. So we are not precisely sure what IBM is talking about here.
Perhaps it has changed how some of this will be implemented? Whatever it is, what this FAQ says is this: “The ability to acquire new IBM i non-expiring licenses for the P05 and P10 software tiers will be withdrawn on March 26th, 2024. While it is our intent to move to subscription term licensing for all software tiers, there is no plan for P20 or P30 software tiers at this time.”
That is all news to us, and it sounds like the large companies in the P20 and P30 tiers might have made a stink. It is not clear when this change was made, but since it is not in blue, presumably it was before February 15 when the last change we know about was made to the FAQ.
On February 15, IBM also clarified its licensing of IBM i on the Capacity BackUp (CBU) variants of the Power Systems servers:
Basically, if you have a CBU machine for backups, it can have perpetual or subscription licenses to the IBM i stack, and the production machine that is being backed up can have perpetual or subscription licenses, and the pairing does not have to match. But you have to have either one or the other type of license on the CBU box – you cannot have LPARs with different types of licenses under the same serial number.
There are a lot of other stipulations that are made apparent in this document, so you should check it out. There are many unanswered questions, such as how extended support will work for IBM i subscriptions, how you transfer licenses between machines, including instances running on IBM’s Power Virtual Server (PowerVS) cloud offering, and how you transition from perpetual to subscription licenses.
With new perpetual licenses for the IBM i stack not being available after March 26 – or maybe May 7 if this document is correct – it is time to clarify the many points that the subscription FAQ brings up. We are surprised, in fact, that it has not already been done. We will keep an eye out for clarification and for any delay in implementation of subscription pricing that IBM reveals within its normal announcement process or through other means like this FAQ.
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If only 1/10th of all the MBA brainpower in devising intricate licensing went to engineering IBMi… what a world would be
Subscription based economy: a cancer and madness that we are inviting in this world, IBM now lose their differentiation point. A core machine that stop working because sub expire?
I don’t think anyone has suggested that the machine will stop working when the sub expires. But I do strongly suspect that the bills will come in and they will do something — not sure what — when and if you don’t pay. That is, frankly, one of the big IFs in all of this.
IBM i Business Transformation FAQ
Notice on 2/18/2024:
This FAQ will be updated and republished by 2/20/2024.
The wording did not say “on May 7, 2020” but rather after this time
That was close to four years ago and they still haven’t done it?
That was a typo I accidentally introduced. I meant to say May 7, 2024.