FROM BUSINESS PARTNER
TO INDEPENDENT PROVIDER

Working as an IBM Business Partner and reseller, Origina Founder and CEO, Tomás O’Leary, came to a worrying realization: B2B technology OEMs hold almost all the cards in their customer relationships, and the narratives they push regarding updates, maintenance, and end of life software rarely benefit anyone but themselves.

It would’ve been easy to dismiss the problem as another case of “that’s how it has always been,” a line of thinking that is all too common in the business world. But in speaking to IBM customers over his decades of partnership with the software vendor, Tomás discovered just how much financial and electronic waste occurred due to a lack of viable alternative options.

Companies were spending millions to maintain software and support models that simply didn’t suit their IT roadmaps or growth trajectories. And many customers struggled to understand their rights and entitlements to IBM® software.

Forced upgrades and diminishing, defect-based support agreements were just two unfair tactics our founder recognized when reviewing the landscape. Other customers noted pricing models that kept them paying the same amounts year over year, even if they drastically cut the number of licenses they were entitled to or lost support coverage for certain issues they might face.

The environmental impact of these practices also weighed heavy. To this day, unwanted upgrades and a lack of support for supposed legacy products often push customers to purchase new hardware as well, which ultimately ends in viable technology hitting landfills years before change is necessary.

IBM’s personnel practices in 2014 not only garnered major media attention, but they also presented an avenue of opportunity for Origina. As IBM had been laying off its most tenured support employees to make way for newer talent, they were also losing a wealth of extremely valuable support skills in the process.

With a clear picture of the challenges facing companies in these software relationships, Tomás and his Origina Co-Founder, Rowan O’Donoghue, couldn’t help but be curious. Could an independent software maintenance vendor bridge the many gaps software megavendor policies and practices created? And if so, what would it look like?

An independent IP law firm concluded there was plenty of space for such a service to legally operate. And digging into a list of approximately 1,400 IBM® software products, our founding team discovered that around 800 could continue to be maintained and secured by a skilled independent partner, even if the OEM had little interest in providing aid.

Tomás and Rowan began reaching out to their network of IBM engineers and product experts who had been laid off during the OEM’s hunt for newer talent. Our founding team knew these professionals were the cream of the crop in terms of IBM product knowledge and expertise. And they were exactly the foundation Tomás and Rowan needed to turn Origina’s innovative support model into reality.

Early trials gave way to unquestionable success. Fast forward several years, including expansion into new product groups, and Origina serves many of the world’s largest companies, including several Fortune 500 and Global 1000 leaders. Backed by hundreds of global independent experts (GIEs) and a technical council of some of the most experienced, talented IBM®, HCL®, and VMware® software specialists in the world, our stated goal is simple: Change the software world by helping companies get the most out of their current IBM, HCL, and VMware software investments — putting control back in the hands of the customer.