IBM To Attach Tivoli Discounts To Server Sales

IBM is planning to unveil incentives aimed at increasing the attach rate of its Tivoli storage software to its server sales.

Sometime this month, the company plans to initiate a Distribution Incentive Option that will provide lower pricing on Tivoli software sold with servers, said Michael Gerentine, worldwide director of channel strategy at IBM Tivoli.

The bonus, which Gerentine was unable to specify, will be tied to closing deals for Tivoli Storage Manager and Tivoli Productivity Center to IBM xSeries and pSeries servers.

"I'm reaching out to hardware folks. ... They need to make a quarterly commitment and are rewarded at the end of the quarter if they meet their quotas," he said.

Recent increases in IBM server sales bodes well for the program, Gerentine said.According to Gartner Dataquest, IBM shipped $1.8 billion worth of servers in the fourth quarter of 2004 in the United States, making it the top server vendor. Worldwide, IBM was the No. 1 server vendor in units shipped last year with about 1.1 million servers, up 21 percent from 2003.

Earlier this week, research firm IDC said IBM was the No. 4 storage software vendor, with sales of $617 million in this category. However, sales grew only 9.1 percent, compared with the industry average growth of 16.1 percent.

Gerentine said that the Tivoli attach rate for IBM server sales was in the single digits.