>> On Wed, 23 May 2007 09:27:21 +0200, Dirk Kastens <Dirk.Kastens AT 
>> UNI-OSNABRUECK DOT DE> said:

> I never understood why a backup software is being licensed based on
> the number or type of the processors. This would be ok for a
> database or mathematical software but not for a backup software.

When they first moved off the "Server license expensive, client
license cheap" model, the muttering was a harmonization of the TSM
product with the rest of the Tivoli price scheme.

It appears that the flattening of the price scheme was trying to
decrease the amout of "front-end" costs, witness the Express product,
etc.

I think this is a disservice both to the existing clue base and the
product as a whole.  TSM is a superb product but not a trivial one to
run well.  The flattened price scheme encourages little shops to get
into it, badly.

I'm biased on this, running a medium-to-large TSM server for UF campus
and environs, but there are a couple of places on and near campus
who've decided to go roll their own.  I try to help them, but there's
a limit to what I can do.

So people climb into the product for cheap, get bit, get mad, go do
something else.




In any case, the current license scheme is impossible to get right,
expensive to estimate, and not representative of the value received.

There's no reason to base the licensing on something the client can't
estimate, and good reason to base it on something the server can
calculate.  I say let IBM do the legwork.


I wonder how much IBM is paying KPMG to find out "This license scheme
is a burden"?  They coulda had it here for free.


- Allen S. Rout