IBM End of Support or Not End of Support - That is the Question
9 May 2025 - 2 Minute Read
Take a look at the website of just about any Third Party Maintainer & in some way shape or form, you will see a list of machines showing you the end of support dates from the manufacturer. Alongside this is the claim that these dates are the precise time when the machine should be switched to third party support, without any explanation as to what the end of support from the manufacturer actually means.
Taking IBM as an example, End Of Support for hardware or software means there will be no more development of that particular version of hardware or software. It does not mean that IBM will no longer maintain them in fact quite the opposite, IBM TLS (Technology Lifecycle Services) is focused on extending the life of IBM technology with support extensions for both hardware & software. In conjunction with Baby Blue, a user of IBM Storage, IBM Power Systems, IBM Mainframes, IBM zOS, IBM AIX or IBMi could expect an additional five years of IBM support from the stated EOS date.
This support includes hardware maintenance from IBM TLS & also includes any firmware updates or software updates that may be produced by IBM in that time, usually for high impacting issues, that may not be available to a non-user of IBM services.
Whilst looking at the Third Party Maintainer website you may also see claims that imply if there is a deep issue with a device they cannot resolve they have escalation routes in to the manufacturer, with IBM this is simply not true. Unless you have a valid contract with IBM there are no escalation routes.
So the only sensible conclusion if you want to sweat your asset, if you want to make sure your machines & operating systems are secure & compliant with all the latest updates, if you want to make sure that your machine is maintained to manufacturers standards, you need IBM support through Baby Blue.
If you want to see how we can make your IBM hardware & software support from the manufacturer cost you less than you are paying for your third party support then please reach out to me & let’s have a conversation, you may well be pleasantly surprised!
About the Author
Will Nicholls
Will Nicholls is an industry recognised expert in the field of Hardware & Software Maintenance services especially around all IBM platforms. Will has worked in this field as a salesman for over 25 years and in his time has won some of the largest third party maintenance contracts many of which, due to his passion for account management, stayed with him for multiple years. Will is known for his innovation, bringing new, highly profitable services to the organisations he worked for. Will is now responsible all things maintenance related and making sure that we always do the right thing for the Customer.
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