Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2010/10/13/ibm_expands_power_leasing/
IBM expands Power leasing deal to Europe and Asia
Oracle and HP Unix shops deal goes globetrotting
Posted in Channel, 13th October 2010 15:42 GMT
The generous leasing deal that IBM rolled out in early September to Oracle and Hewlett-Packard Unix shops in North America is now available to customers moving over to Power Systems iron and the AIX operating system in Europe and Asia.
As El Reg previously reported, Oracle and HP Unix customers who move applications to Power 770, 780, or 795 systems and who went to IBM's Global Financing to lease the machines were allowed to defer lease payments by 120 days if they got a deal inked by the end of September. That's when Big Blue's third quarter ended, and the company was eager to peddle its big boxes. So eager, in fact, that it was basically allowing customers to get new gear in 2010 and shifting the acquisition to the 2011 budget.
On deals that take place from 1 October onwards through 31 December, IBM is offering 90 days of payment deferrals, again pushing the acquisition out to 2011's budget. Customers have to have at least $75,000 worth of gear under lease and they have to ink a 36-month deal with a fair market value payout at the end of the lease term. While the deal does not mention Fujitsu by name, it almost certainly applies to Fujitsu Sparc-based systems, which are rebadged and sold by Oracle.
IBM says that after a "very successful launch" in the United States and Canada, this high-end Power Systems leasing deal is going abroard. The deal is being carbon-copied for European Solaris and HP-UX shops (with restrictions in certain countries that were not specified).
The deal gets a little more complicated in the Asia/Pacific region and various growth markets where IBM is allowing the interest-free financing deal on big Power boxes.
In Brazil, customers are being given a 39-month lease term instead of 36 months in Australia, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, and Thailand.
In the AP and growth markets, IBM is offering trade-ins on entry and midrange Sparc T5220, T5240, and T2000 servers as well as on high-end Sparc Enterprise M9000 systems. Customers using Solaris on HP ProLiant iron can also get a trade-in as they consolidate workloads onto IBM's Power 770, 780, or 795 machines, and those consolidating HP-UX workloads running on Itanium-based Integrity servers can also get cash trade-ins for their displaced gear. In the AP and growth markets, any storage array acquisitions that are done in conjunction with the acquisition of the Power 770, 780, or 795 server count towards the $75,000 minimum purchase requirement for the deferred payment leasing deal.
In Europe and North America, storage does not count toward the base acquisition requirement. It is hard to imagine being able to get a usable configuration of the Power 770 machine for less than $75,000 (£47,400), so the point is probably moot. But customers buying a complete system with servers, storage, and switches probably want to defer payments on the whole shebang, not just the server. And if they make a fuss, it seems likely that a customer moving from Oracle, HP, or Fujitsu gear to IBM gear can ask for and get all kinds of things that are not formally part of the deal. IBM wants to keep doing takeouts, which net it an average of a little more than $1m a pop for Power Systems alone when it does these deals, based on historical trends. ®