Big Blue Raises IBM i License Transfer Fees, Other Prices

June 9, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The price increases that may or may not be happening to cover increasing costs at IBM continue apace. Some of the price increases we have seen over the past several months might be driven by increasing costs or the expectation of increasing costs, and others might be initiated to drive services and software revenues higher to push the profit level of the overall Power Systems business.

It is hard to say for sure.

But what we can say for certain is that last week, in announcement letter AD25-1142 dated June 2, Big Blue once again increased prices on various Power Systems division and Storage division products, with the price change taking effect on July 1.

The main one that will affect many IBM i shops that are looking to upgrade to Power10 machines, or to move to Power11 machines when they become available shortly, can be seen in the spreadsheet that accompanied the announcement. In the Excel tab labeled “IBMi” you will see four price changes for all current releases of the IBM i operating system, which is known by the product number 5770-SS1. The feature codes shown are for IBM i license transfers, which are charged when a perpetual license is moved from one machine in the same IBM i and OS/400 processor group to the same group or to one higher. These license fees are per core, just like the license fees themselves.

As you can see, to move an IBM i license from an existing machine to a new machine in the same or a lower transfer group – 5770-SS1 feature 1448 – will cost $8,954, a 33 percent increase from the price that applies until the end of June.

The same license transfer fee when moving from a Group 2 machine to a Group 3 machine – 5770-SS1 feature 1451 – is also now $8,954, up 33 percent from the $6,742 it is right now. The IBM i Software Tiers and the corresponding Transfer Groups are outlined in this document. This is basically when you move old Power6 and Power7 big iron in the old and no longer used P50 software tier to new Power7, Power8, Power9, and Power10 big iron in the still used P30 software tier. So, this is a nominal fee for such large machines even if it is a large price increase.

The opposite is true for the next two 5770-SS1 features. They have big prices and smaller price increases. Features 1449 and 1450 both cost $24,270 per core, but now cost 9 percent more at $26,482 per core. Feature 1449 covers a license transfer from a Group 1 machine to a Group 2 machine. The Group 1 machines are single-socket and dual-socket machines that tend to end in “24” like the Power S1024, the Power S924, the Power S824 and earlier entry and midrange machines like the Power 730, Power 740, and Power 750, all of which are in the P20 software tier. The Transfer Group 2 machines are higher-core machines that range in vintage from Power6 through Power10 and they are in the P30 software tier.

Feature 1450 covers jumps from Transfer Group 1, which are all in the P20 tier, to Transfer Group 3, which are as we said above in the long-discontinued P50 tier.

As you can see, the matrix of options is not just as simple as jumping from one machine to another, but depends on the relative vintage and size of the machines in question. It is very complicated. It would be a whole lot simpler if this were all subscription pricing based on cores, which is something IBM has been trying to work towards. But it has made everything so complicated it is very hard to get a price that makes sense and can be easily described.

The thing to note here is that machines in Transfer Group 4 in the P05 software tier and machines in Transfer Group 5 in the P10 software tier were not affected by this price change. These are the tiers and transfer groups that dominate the lion’s share of the IBM i and OS/400 installed base. So there is that.

None of that means there will not be a price increase on these at some point in the future, of course.

Separately, the same announcement letter includes price increases related for foreign exchange rates relative to the US dollar and the rupiah in Indonesia, the rupee in Sri Lanka, and the dollar in Australia. Prices in Indonesia are going up 1.6 percent, in Sri Lanka are going up 1 percent, and in Australia are going up four-tenths of a point. These increases cover recent vintages of Power Systems and Storage products as well as racks and other gear like management consoles.

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