Thoughts on IBM licensing🤔📝
The big announcement this month was the 24% price increase in January for all IBM products. A very significant increase by any measure. When you include this with the elimination of RSVP discounts for most perpetual products you might want to revisit your estimates for new IBM licenses.
Before investing in expensive new IBM licenses consider the following :
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Does our ELA allow us to substitute products and avoid new purchases?
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Can the project get by on a lower edition of the product?
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Have we challenged the number of cores assigned to the server being licensed (big saving on PVUs)
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For products with a range of user types (e.g. Cognos) could we free up licenses from legacy users?
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Are there systems we can accelerate the decommissioning of to free up licenses?
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Review the pricing options between PVU and other license metrics such as Authorised User
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Challenge your IBM account manager on new pricing
You won’t be able to avoid new license purchase forever but in the short term it’s worth the effort to try and get more value from your existing investment.
I’d love to hear your thought and questions related to IBM licensing. Leave a comment below or email me at questions@ibmlicensingexpert.com
📢News and IBM Announcements
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Price Change(s): 2023 Distributed Software Price Changes are out and they are a bit of a shock, 24% !! Details in the announcement letter. Good discussion here on LinkedIn on the topic.
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A new section added to the IBM licensing website on Measurement methodologies. Really good and worth a read.
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IBM are opening up their training for partners. Sales focused but you may find something useful in there.
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I get asked “why is IBM licensing so confusing?” There are many reasons but one is the number of products and companies IBM acquire and “blue rinse”. This list of IBM acquisitions will give you a flavour.
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There have been some updates to the IBM ILMT training videos you should check out.
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Interesting post from NPI Financials, IBM Monthly License Charges Increasing More than Usual. Bit of a theme this month on price increases.
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Update to IBM Licensing Guides . The guides are a great resource to quickly confirm certain licensing scenarios. They come with the usual warning about being informational but in an audit they make a strong case.
What I’ve been reading, listening or watching 📚 🎧📺
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Question in the IBM Licensing Group around Authorised User licensing
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Security & ITAM in the Public Sector webinar from AnglePoint. The topic in the 2nd half was particularly interesting as it talked about the US plans for Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity: NIST’s Responsibilities Under the May 2021 Executive Order
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The Two Irish Guys were talking about not letting vendor manage your road map. For anyone renewing an IBM ELA this is something you should be keeping in mind. Always remember whos driving the bus 🚌, you👈🏻, not IBM .
I encourage you to use the hashtag #ibmlicensing when you find a post this audience might be interested in so it can be found more easily.
Events / Webinars 🎬📅
Here’s a few webinars/videos I found interesting. This month I fell into a BigFix rabbit hole 🐰🕳️.
BigFix (Inventory module) is a critical part of managing IBM sub capacity licensing for many organisations. So the more familiar you are with this tool the more opportunities you’ll find to reduce license costs
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Playlist on the HCL YouTube channel dedicated to BigFix. Covers more than licensing but that should help you understand your stakeholders better also.
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Recording of a webinar focused on BigFix Inventory from Clean Slate. Always some useful tips.
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Webinar on Get More Done with BigFix – Implementing Template Signatures in BigFix Inventory
You can find more information on BigFix and BFI at forum.bigfix.com and the ILMT tool.
IBM Licensing Tips 💡
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When modelling the cost of your IBM ELA renewal be sure to offset the NPV of money (7-10% now) against discounts quoted by IBM.
You want more?
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🧑🤝🧑The IBM Licensing Group on LinkedIn where you can connect with others interested in IBM licensing.
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📚 My blog at https://www.ibmlicensingexpert.com for past articles and subscribe to my IBM license tips.
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🎦 Watch IBM Licensing Expert on YouTube.
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📅 Archive of past newsletters
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