4 Reasons to Review your IBM Legacy Support Contract

As we pointed out in our recent whitepaper on ‘Maintaining and Support Legacy IBM Systems’ – mainframe systems continue to play a key role in running core business applications in organizations globally. The death of these systems has been predicted for the last 25 years but the reliability and security afforded by this infrastructure as well as the prohibitive costs of moving off these systems have led to a profitable and lucrative market for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM’s).

Here are four of the main reasons you should take a second look at your current IBM Legacy Support contract.

1.       Cost

Can you afford another rise in maintenance costs from OEM’s this year? If the cost of maintaining your Legacy Systems is holding you back from driving your business through IT solutions, then you’re not alone. As well as charging for Inventory Analysis, pre-purchase of critical hardware parts, health-checks, and patching advice, IBM has confirmed another 3% rise in the cost of Legacy Support. These extra charges can be crippling to an ever-tightening IT budget. As a leaner and more agile company, we don’t carry the cost of a larger provider. We can align ourselves more closely to your business needs and pass these savings directly on to you. Try out our cost calculator to see how you could save up to 50% on your current contract.

2.      Reliability

Are you sick of regular changes to patches, fees and machine code updates? Over the past few years, evidence has emerged of OEM’s operating restrictive practice, denying end-users updates that were previously freely available. In 2012, IBM restricted the availability of hardware patches to existing clients and in July 2013 it backtracked saying only systems purchased after April 2012 would be affected. Further changes to the IBM Fix Central website and changes to licensing are just some of the many tactics being used by OEMs that reduce the options for businesses with legacy systems.

Origina, as an Advanced Member of IBM’s PartnerWorld Programme and part of the global Service Industry Association, understands the rules and the contracts that govern availability of patches. The world is often not as it is painted by the OEMs and therefore we are a credible, reliable alternative to these OEMs. As a member of the Digital Right to Repair, Origina is a firm believer in freedom of choice for end-users.

3.       Expertise

Does your current provider have the knowledge, skills and experience for IBM Legacy Support? As an ex-IBM managed services partner, Origina have a unique and unrivalled skill-set and experience of providing support for Legacy Systems. Many providers now are offering support of Legacy Systems as a second, or even third-tiered service offering. Having exploded in popularity, cloud-based and advanced technology services are what many providers are focusing their efforts on. Unfortunately, for the owners of Legacy systems this means there is a serious problem with a shrinking pool of technical support skills for Legacy Systems and a provider with its focus elsewhere.

But not everyone has forgotten about the maintenance of Legacy Systems! With an increasing amount of end-users moving their support contracts away from the OEM’s, Origina have the skills, expertise and flexibility required to take the risk out of Legacy. Having been nominated for and won numerous IT Excellence Awards, Origina continue to innovate and provide an expertise in Legacy support that exceeds competitors and OEM’s alike. Don’t just take our word for it though, here’s what just some of our clients have to say.

4.       Service

Is your provider dedicated to Legacy Support? At Origina, we pride ourselves on the quality of our Legacy Support, it’s our flagship offering and something we will never compromise the quality of. Legacy services have become commoditized as IBM continue to offshore jobs, with more IBM employees in India now than in the US! We are finding that users are becoming dissatisfied with the level and quality of service available. Legacy Systems are still the foundation of many business, but there is now a considerable risk in the availability of top-class Legacy support for these systems.

With budgets as tight as ever and the high costs involved with moving to a cloud-based solution, take the steps to eliminate the service-level risks surrounding your Legacy Systems. Contact Origina today and within 24 hours we can provide you with a free-of-charge comprehensive report detailing the level of support and cost savings that is different than your current support option.