IBM yeaterday reacted to the growing surge of dissent over its mainframe software pricing by introducing what it calls Single Version Charging for substantially all System/370 system software – but took the opportunity to raise prices of much of its mainframe software in the US. Single Version Charging – clearly designed to encourage users to migrate to MVS/ESA from MVS/XA but available for all upgrades, eliminates duplicate charges for multiple versions of a program where both versions run on the same machine. This means that users can keep the old version while testing the new one and will pay only for the new one. Version-to-Version Program Upgrade Credits for graduated one-time charge software are effective immediately. IBM also withdrew volume purchase amendments on all VM and VSE licensed programs and many MVS ones. The price rises hit monthly licences and one time charges on many major products when used on Model Group 50 machines – the 3090-600S and 500S, including DB2, C/370 and VM REXX. There is a 25% discount on most Cobol, Fortran and PL/I 370 compilers and libraries, available until December 31.
