BMC Software, the world`s leading systems management company focused on e-vailability, has become the first independent software vendor (ISV) to announce support for IBM`s recent workload pricing on its products.
BMC, represented locally by Master Distributor MGX Enterprise Solutions, will allow customers to pay for software on a dynamic usage basis as soon as IBM`s new zSeries mainframes ship - expected before year-end - despite the fact that IBM`s licence manager technology will not be ready for the market until March or April 2001.
The mainframe has come to be acknowledged as the ultimate e-business server. IBM recently announced its successor to the S/390 architecture, its dynamically reconfigurable zSeries 900. A major element of IBM`s eServer announcement, which will be expanded to its non-PC hardware range in coming months, is a shift away from traditional hardware and software pricing, to a pricing model based on the actual workloads run by customers.
To exploit workload pricing, high-end customers will have to migrate to the zSeries machines, and then wait for IBM`s new 64-bit operating system, z/OS, to arrive in the second quarter with IBM`s workload metering utilities. However, before then, BMC customers will be able to adjust their licence payments according to fluctuating workloads on a "scout`s honour" basis, says Reg Swart, BMC GM at MGX Enterprise Solutions.
"Trusting customers to pay the fair price for their software might be an alien concept to some vendors," notes Swart, "but BMC is confident that its users won`t abuse this trust. Unlike the PC industry, the mainframe industry is a very cohesive, professional community, and everyone knows everyone else. You couldn`t do this with PC software."
While waiting for the arrival of z/OS next year, BMC will embed IBM`s licence manager technology in some products, although Swart adds that most of BMC`s products "are already doing what they need to do" to support workload pricing.
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