IBM has quietly begun offering site licences for Personal Computer systems and applications software in the US. The agreement requires users to take at least 20 different programs in one year, and discounts range from 12% to 30%, and apply to software bought either from IBM or from authorised and value-added dealers. The new arrangements cover all operating systems including the Personal Computer 3270 control program, and all the Personal Decision series. The company says that the plan has been instituted to meet the demands of corporate customers who down-load software from a host or network server, and find it an irritation to have to buy an extra copy on floppy disk to do so legally. Under the site-licence plan, customers get further discounts if they are prepared to take just one copy of the documentation, and to qualify for the site-licensing deal, customers have to estimate their software purchase plans over a 12-month period. At the end of the period, IBM will settle the difference between the number of copies made and the estimate – regardless of whether the software was bought from the company or through dealers. They will then be either billed or credited for the difference.
