IBM did get back, a number of times now in fact. First quote was for $23,894 CDN! as you can gues took me a couple of minutes to get my breath back! Bearing in mind I had asked for the most basic system available I was not impressed. So I wrote back and said I thought it was a bit high and would need to consider my options. The main reason I wanted the system was to allow me to simply test Remote journal functions and TCP/IP communications programs, so I dont need any special features. I have a couple of friends who sell hardware so I thought I would ask if they new the base price of an i515, they kindly sent me the announcement information that IBM published. I was shocked to see that the base price (a system with the base software and hardware configuration which was all I needed) was $7995US. Now I do know that IBM has different price lists for different countries (dont ask me why!) but the jump from $7,995US to $23,894 didnt stack up. So I sent the information back to my IBM salesman, he returned a quote for $14,400. Again I was puzzled as to the big price difference so I looked at the config he had sent back, He had added an additional 2 drives to the config which I clearly didnt need so I agian replied saying I dont need them. Back came the 3rd Quote, this time the 2 drives feature which included a 40MB cache had been replaced with just 40MB cache option. I only have 2 drives and it added a feature for Raid! So again I went back as said I dont need this feature, I  replied asking that he remove the feature and while he was at it remove the Twinax IOA as I will be connecting to it via Ops Console (I hope I can do it now). So I now have a price of $9,550 for the system, being a PiD member I also get this discounted so I will be ordering the system as soon as IBM gets a final quote to me!
The one thing I have learnt about this is ensure you check your config, it looks like either eConfig does a bad job or the IBM salesman wanted more commision!
Chris…
This post highlights one of my main bitches with the way IBM is conducting their business now.
In the ‘olden days’, maybe 5-10 years or so ago, I could configure a system with the features I wanted and know what the retail price was. I used that philosophy quite often after I became a self-employed consultant. Acting as a consultant I would determine what a client needed, play with the configuration until I came up with the best solution. I then had a general price that I could take to the client management to see if they wanted to proceed. Then I would contact the Business Partner that I worked with, send him the configuration and tell him that he needed to contact this client and give him the discounted price for the the system and order the quoted configuration if the discounted price was acceptable.
I did quite well with that philosophy since the BP didn’t have to do much except process the order, he rewarded me with a significant portion of the profit.
Now all I can do is go to the BP and say ‘this client needs so and so’. Please configure it and give me an idea of what the price will be. My reward was significantly less since the BP was now having to do most of the work involved.
If you had been able to configure your own system you would have had a one step process.
By basically removing the consultants from a lot of the marketing process I think IBM made another serious blunder.
The problem is that the LPAR Validation Tool (Basically a System i configurator) and the eConfig Toolset is not available for non BPs. Both of these tools suck big time, and it’s very complicated to get the same configuration as IBM is advertising.
Dealing with IBM directly is also not very good – in short, they don’t care much about your system because it costs less than half a million. This is different when dealing with smaller BPs – they do value your Business, and make a better effort.
In general, only 2x70GB Disks make a 515 unnecesserely slow. I would recommend to go with the RAID/Cache Feature and 4 Disks. Performance will be a lot better. (Yes, the pricing for the RAID Feature and the 70GB Disks is unreasonable. Nothing i can do about that.)
Believe it or not we are a BP, a Partner in Development though not a hardware reseller.. We have to go through IBM to get the discounts for the hardware so we cannot use a BP that sells Hardware. In the past I have used a BP to create the config and then sent that onto IBM for pricing. This time I thought it would be quicker to go directly to IBM. My request to IBM was for a base level i515, I did not ask for a high performance model as this is only going to be used as a test box for TCP/IP and Remote Journalling, speed will not be required. If the process works I can switch it round and run it on my i520 for performance. So the Disk and Cache feature (was quoted in the original specs) will not be of much use. I wanted a very cheap solution to my need for two systems for program validation.
Chris…