System i Addict

I know IBM is all over me and my shop to buy Power5+ now vs. waiting for Power6. I think it’s funny the IBM rep said “Power6 is unproven technology”, like he was talking about another Sun product. Oh well he knows I still lov’em.

I woul dlove to wait for Power6 cause that is going to be awesome, but Power5+ is a nice little jump if you on 3 year old Power5 chips and are really close to a new system.

LINK

With new user-priced System i 515 and 525 boxes out the door a month and a half ago to address the entry server market and no expectation of a revamping of the System i line with the Power6 processors until early 2008–unless, of course, market conditions force IBM to change its plans–the company last week announced a number of promotions that are designed to lower the cost of buying a modern System i and get customers to spend now rather than later.

The upgrade and trade-in promotion deals that IBM announced concurrently with the launch of the first Power6-based server–a System p 570 AIX box, as it turns out, but no System i variant as yet–are ones that are familiar in structure to deals gone by.

The System i Upgrade Promotion expires on November 16. It offers customers who upgrade from specific iSeries Model 810 and 825 servers to specific i5 520, 525, and 550 servers a rebate that varies not only depending on the machines involved in the deal, but also by when the customer does the deal. Customers who do an upgrade between now and September 30, which is the end of the third quarter of this year, get slightly higher rebates than they would if they do a deal between October 1 and November 16. Here’s the way the deal works out for those who do an upgrade before the end of September: