The thorny issue of software pricing at IBM Corp – where the most widely-used word is exorbitant, has gone through another churn and, starting with desktop and Unix software, the company has now settled on four pricing models, usually be decided by IBM rather than at the customer’s option, but the formulae are intended to mirror the reality in the Unix world. The four alternatives are pricing by system MIPS, regardless of the number of users, by MIPS used by the specific program, pricing by the number of people registered to use the system, and pricing by the actual number of user terminals on the system. It is also basing discounts on customers’ worldwide spending, so that they can sign a single contract for licensing IBM software in all eligible countries the discount size varying according to future spending levels.
