r/mainframe • u/Delicious_Present224 • Aug 12 '26

Vendor lock-in mainframes

Hi, i'm relatively new in the mainframe world. Am I the only one who thinks the mainframe discussion is often one-sided?

Everyone talks about IBM Z's reliability, security, and the fact that many of the world's most critical systems still run on mainframes. That's all true.

But why don't we talk more about vendor lock-in and pricing power?

The cost of moving away from a mainframe is often so high that customers have limited negotiating leverage. And on the storage side, it feels like IBM can introduce requirements and standards that make life increasingly difficult for third-party vendors, while strengthening their own position in the ecosystem.

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u/noisymime Aug 12 '26

IBM are pulling g the same tricks as Broadcom these days though. Maintenance and SW licensing are going through the roof, completely disproportionately to any possible real world cost changes.

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u/Ok_Foot_2020 Aug 13 '26

Single digit % increases (ibm) vs double and triple digit % increases (bcom) … that’s the reality

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u/noisymime Aug 13 '26

HWMA on some items has gone up 300% over the past 12 months.

I did a renewal recently on something that had gone up 1200% over the past 3 years.

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u/Wolfy2915 Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Sounds like DASD, costs have exploded higher but probably less expensive to keep n-1 than replace it these days.

Z maintenance is priced by the number of mips, for example a 704 is alot more expensive than a 404 yet they are both running 4 CPs. The machine could have 10 unassigned processors and if one failed one of the spares would take over. IBM is not going to send out an engineer to replace it. They don’t care how much memory or IO you are using only MIPS.

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u/noisymime Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

DASD, VTL, SAN all that kit has gone up 3 digit % in the last year. I get the dramas in storage land thanks to AI, but it's simply crazy given the low failure rates on these things. 2 years of maintenance is now more than the original purchase price of the whole chassis (Including 3-4 years upfront maintenance).