IBM Tweaks More Rebate Deals to Cut Power7 Prices

June 28, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Ask and ye shall receive. It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes it does–maybe just enough to make you believe there’s something in the universe that is listening for a good idea. In this case, that something is a somebody who works at IBM, which has finally gotten around to adding its new Power7-based blade servers announced in April to some existing (and too complicated in my opinion) trade-in deals. Last week, when going over how the Power 750, 770, and 780 servers that were launched in February were added to two existing trade-in deals, I complained that the Power Systems 700, 701, and 702 blades were MIA in those deals.

To partially rectify this situation, IBM has added the PS700, PS701, and PS702 blade servers as well the Power 750, 770, and 780 to two other rebate deals, which were last modified in July and September of last year. In those deals, IBM is giving customers rebates to customers buying Power6, Power6+, or Power7 machinery if they are moving selected third-party applications off one platform to a Power box or installing those applications for the first time on a Power box.

In announcement letter 310-210, you’ll find the updated Software Solutions for IBM Power Systems First-in-Location rebate offering, which came out in September of last year to help IBM, Power Systems resellers, and third-party ISVs certified to peddle boxes on Power iron make some deals in a pitiful economy.

In the updated deal, those buying a PS700 blade server can get $500, those buying a PS701 can get $750, and those buying a PS702 can get $1,000. Depending on the configuration, rebates on Power 750s range from $3,000 (eight-core 3 GHz) to $25,000 (32-core 3.55 GHz); on Power 770s range from $4,000 (six-core 3.5 GHz) to $30,000 (48-core 3.5 GHz); and on Power 780s range from $6,000 (six-core 4.14 GHz) to $80,000 (64-core 3.8 GHz). IBM has cut back on some of the rebates for older iron, it says in the announcement.

The eligible list of software that can be acquired for these new Power boxes (as well as Power6 and Power6+ iron outlined in the announcement, which has not been removed in case resellers or IBM need to clear old gear out of the barn) has been expanded. I counted 119 vendors on the list, most of which have several to dozens of different products that run on i, AIX, or Linux.

The Software Solutions for IBM Power Systems Competitive Migration rebate offering, which was last updated in July 2009, is nearly the same deal except it applies to customers who are moving applications from non-IBM systems onto Power boxes. As you can see in announcement letter 310-211, the rebates are exactly the same on exactly the same Power6, Power6+, and now Power7 iron and they include the same 119 ISVs for Power iron. There are two separate deals presumably so IBM can change them independently at some future time, perhaps spiking one but not the other as market conditions dictate.

As I said last week, it is hard to say if the rebates IBM is offering on the Power 750, 770, and 780 machines are significant since Big Blue has not seen fit to publish list prices publicly for the new machines. Pricing is available for the Power7 blades, and the rebates will definitely shave a few points off the cost of acquiring a new blade.

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