Third party maintenance companies may band together to produce equivalents to IBM’s MAQ Maintenance Agreement Qualification letter, according to an Econocom UK spokesman. The company appears to have set the ball rolling with the introduction of its own Quality Assurance Letter, or QAL. The move comes in response to a policy change within IBM UK, which has pushed up MAQ charges to UKP500 from UKP325. Econocom says that its QAL will be supplied with any used equipment that has been maintained by its maintenance division, will represent the execution of similar equipment checks to those provided by IBM and will guarantee the equipment’s maintenance, regardless of any MAQ requirements. Naturally, it will also cost considerably less than UKP500. The third party maintenance market has moved a long way from a spanner and a prayer, the spokesman argued, adding that, today, there are very, very few things that IBM alone can control. The latest releases of IBM microcode – including the new 3174 terminal controller version for which IBM will make a separate charge – would appear to be one of them. Econocom is currently in negotiation with other leasing companies, believed to include Meridian and Atlantic, and is confident that they will follow suit. Its long-term goal is for third parties to provide a number of MAQ equivalants, which would be transferrable within the third party maintenance community. Our common objective is to break the current IBM strangle-hold, Econocom concluded.
