Concluding a staged rollout covering two months, IBM has spilled out a grab bag of so-called "service products" encompassing a wide range of skills and technologies, from point-of-sale systems to an IT executive workshop.
The bundles of software and expertise sold as distinct packages bring to fruition a significant goal of IBM: to capitalize on its vast storehouse of knowledge acquired developing client solutions by repackaging software and services for new customers.
"If they can bundle services in a way that's repeatable to attack a specific business problem, then that's going to be good for IBM—to leverage their investment in software, hardware and services," said Matt Healey, an analyst at research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass.
On Nov. 15, IBM announced the point-of-sale offering, which includes management for checkout systems, said Patty Gibbs, vice-president of technical support and maintenance for IBM Global Services.
"It's end-to-end single-point-of-contact for IBM and non-IBM products," Gibbs said.
IBM uses its own Tivoli management tools to take over management of a point-of-sale system, which IBM claims it can do for less than customers normally pay. The cost for the service starts at $105 per checkout lane per year.
IBM also announced Implementation Services for Linux Service Product, which is intended to enable faster implementation of the Linux operating system across IBM's server line, as well as fast Linux server consolidation and Linux blade cluster deployment.
Prices range from $10,000 to over $100,000.
Click here to read about IBM's 'cool' data center solutions.
IBM also unveiled Grid and Grow Express Implementation Service Product, which is designed to help customers deploy grid computing systems. The offering includes hardware,, software and services, and is priced starting at $49,000.
On November 21, IBM announced five offerings that emphasize strategy and management:
Business of IT Executive Workshop Service Product, which is intended to help customers align IT with their business goals using IBM's Component Business Model.
Service Management Strategy and Planning Service Product, which is intended to help customers optimize their end-user IT deployments.
Service Management Design Service Product, which is intended to help customers take a life-cycle approach to service management.
IT Optimization Solution Framing Service Product, which is designed to find performance gaps in customer deployments.
Infrastructure Strategy and Planning Service Product, which is intended to assess customer IT architectures for readiness for new technologies.
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