Although IBM UK Ltd seems to have been applying the brakes on direct sales of its RS/6000 AIX box into the business sector where it has been doing a little too well in what is intended to be AS/400 territory (CI No 1,740) – the demand for ‘open systems’ products by major commercial users and public sector operators is becoming unstoppable. Now having to compete with a bevy of system and software providers on vital blue chip accounts like Barclays Bank Plc and British Telecommunications plc over here that are demanding open systems compliance, IBM’s RS/6000 sales force – plus its 200 or so value-added resellers are getting another carrot to dangle in front of corporate customers to entice them to the Big Blue flavour of open systems. The new offering is a bundled package of integrated office automation and imaging software applications from third parties – known collectively as AP/6000 – which IBM will sell, install and support across the RS/6000 range. Users will be able to ‘cherry-pick’ applications from the suite, and pricing will be set in line with the individual suppliers’ licensing fees. This will be on a per-module, per-user, per-system basis – a well-configured system including a CPU but minus screen is expected to start at around UKP1,200 per user. Users will be supported from IBM’s AIX support centre in Basingstoke, Hampshire. IBM originally touted the idea of AP/6000 to existing customers at the end of last year, announcing the first two products in the suite to value-added resellers back in June (CI No 1,719) – Uniplex, the office automation suite from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire-based firm Uniplex Ltd and Coventry-based Simdell Ltd’s Uniplex-based Manager office information software, which also includes an integrated version of New York-based BRS Information Technologies’ BRS Search text retrieval system. IBM is currently negotiating for Wallingford, Oxfordshire-based Dorotech Ltd’s software and hardware image processing package, DoroDoc; and with London firm Financial & Corporate Modelling Consultants Plc for its Staffware procedure processing system. These are likely to be on board by the end of the month – an announcement of the completed suite is due by the end of the year. There are currently seven sites – including Barclays and British Telecom – running AP/6000. Among others that sign up, some are almost certain to be former, or potential, AS/400 users, though IBM UK AIX software and services manager, Rick Jones, says the raft of applications is aimed primarily at those companies that have already made a policy decision to go the open systems road, or who have multi-vendor installations and need both traditional IBM office automation products such as OfficeVision, plus packages that will run on newly-acquired networks of open systems-oriented branch equipment. If the guy wants an open systems solution, we want to be able to provide an equivalent solution to our proprietary offerings, Jones says. Yes, there is debate and competition between product managers on the RS/6000 and AS/400 lines, he admits, but we advise them to sell on the basis of ‘horses for courses’. Price is also likely to play a significant part in the AP/6000’s potential for winning new business on the RS/6000.
Bundles preferred
An integrated imaging and procedure management system was demonstrated by Dorotech and F&CMC at the IBM ’91 show earlier this year running on on the RS/6000 – it came in at half the price of an equivalent ImagePlus system running on an AS/400. A source close to the AP/6000 project – which was lead by Peter Turner at the Basingstoke site – says IBM was spurred into action by the attitude of big companies that want to get into open systems, but are disinclined to get involved with the host of small firms offering a variety of open systems components and tools, preferring instead a fully integrated and supported product bundle from an established firm. Jones agreed that an IBM research study conducted amongst its current user base bore these feelings out. The same source – an existing IBM reseller is c
oncerned about how AP/6000 is going to be sold, because some of the components are very complex, however he admitted that such one-stop shopping for AIX should do very well. Jones says AP/6000 will absorb changes in the various product components, and that IBM will release a new version of the bundle every six months or so. It will be available only in the UK for the present, though the company is talking to the powers that be at its Paris headquarters about rolling the stuff out across continental Europe and other countries. According to Jones, There is a keenness to do it.
