IBM Italy Gives Power-To-Pure Migration Rebate

April 21, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Here is the kind of deal that I would have expected to see a lot more of since the PureSystems family was introduced in April 2012. IBM’s Italian subsidiary is giving customers who transition from regular Power Systems blade servers tucked into BladeCenter enclosures rebates to move to PureFlex converged systems.

Specifically, in announcement letter ZA14-1132, IBM Italy is giving distributors a â‚¬3,000 rebate if their downstream solution provider customers convince customers to make the jump to modern, converged machinery. Customers can either own or lease the Power Systems blade servers, and can work out a deal with the leasing company that makes both IBM and the lessor happy, according to the announcement. Customers have to buy one Flex System chassis, at least one Power-based compute node, and at least one Xeon-based compute node to get the rebate, and IBM says that it expects for the rebate to cascade down from the distributor to the solution provider and further down to the customer as part of this deal.

Why not just cut the price, you ask? Because that cuts into revenue, while a rebate just cuts into profits. If IBM cuts the price by this much, it eats into both revenues and profits. Isn’t the computer business fun?

This rebate deal in Italy is available from April 1 through June 30, the end of the second quarter. The deal applies to BladeCenter H and S enclosures and the HS22 Xeon-based blade as well as the JS12, JS22, and JS23 Power6 blades and the PS700, PS701, PS702, PS703, and PS704 Power7 blades. There were no Power7+ blades, and there never will be, since PureFlex replaced BladeCenter.

The question you now have to ask is why you are not getting a similar offer if you happen to live outside of Italy. Knowing about this deal, there is no reason why you shouldn’t ask for equal treatment. That works out to $4,145 at current exchange rates in U.S. dollars. That is enough money to buy a bunch of things on a new system.