>> On Fri, 8 Jun 2007 12:23:36 -0500, "Bell, Charles (Chip)" <Chip.Bell AT
>> BHSALA DOT COM> said:
> Please answer if you in any way are responsible in the management of
> TSM licenses at your place of business.
I fit the "in any way" characterization.
> We were recently audited, as IBM is reaching out to all of their TSM
> customers to ensure that they are adhering to the new standard.
Oy. 'Reaching out'. How nice. Did they at least leave you with the
tools they used to take their count? I still haven't gotten an answer
from anyone at IBM about how they think that count should be taken.
> What are you guys/gals doing at your place? I'd like a healthy dose
> of feedback to get a feel of whether or not there a majority doing
> it one way or the other. Your participation is appreciated.
We do a total cost recovery thing, of which licensure has been (once
upon a time) a minor constituent. I am currently in the process of a
really angry conversation with my business partner about the recent
license foolishness.
To paraphrase the conversation with the partner, I don't care if IBM
wants to charge for magical pixie points, which measurement they pull
out of some convenient aperture. But their metric should be something
the system we purchase can report to us.
It would be very nice (he said sweetly) if the license metric had SOME
PASSING ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE VALUE PROPOSITION FOR WHICH WE LICENSE
THE SOFTWARE.
Ahem.
If my TSM server reported that I was consuming 23,000 magical pixie
points, for which (my IBM rep could tell me) the fee was [foo], then
we'd be in a simple price negotiation. To have the license related to
an irrelevancy, which we must then do new irrelevant things to
evaluate, is an infuriating, timewasting insult.
Furthermore, the disconnect between the license terms and the value
proposition is sufficiently severe that I have trouble recommending
TSM in some situations. Not 'convincing': 'recommending'.
When I have to care if my client pops another CPU into their file
server, and then find some way to recover that in an equitable
fashion...
When they've got a database and the license cost is going to double
when they add 8 more processors...
No change in TSM value proposition, just accounting overhead and more
license fees.
- Allen S. Rout
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