Michael Coté of RedMonk provides a good analysis of IBM Tivoli Live, an on-demand IT management system, launched last week. Apparently, IBM wants to target and serve the ‘smallish and the mid-market’ with this offering, adopting SaaS as the delivery model and pay-as-you-go as the pricing model. The intention is great and it clearly validates SaaS as a viable alternative to traditional IT management software.
But, is the mid-market looking for SaaS only because of the buzz around it ? I bet not, they care about SaaS only because it promises substantial savings in cost and effort and ultimately provide them a good ROI. With any SaaS service the expectations are,
- No capital expenditure. Dont want to lose anything if I choose not to use the service after the first month
- Affordable, pay-as-you-use pricing model
- Less or no expertise required for service setup
- Better still, outsource IT management to MSPs with some local overseeing
Now, compare this to some interesting facts from Coté’s analysis of IBM Tivoli Live :
- There’s a one-time $6,500 setup fee per customer
- $58 per managed service per month (with an agent in the device) and an additional $14 per managed service per month for reporting (a managed service is a server, network device, application, web service)
- Installs should be “available for use in less than 7 days”
This makes you wonder if IBM understands the mid-market expectations, after they seem to have finally realized their existence. The one time setup fee or $72 per month to monitor a Linux server or a ‘7 days’ consultancy project just for software installation are not what the mid-market wants to hear. It is not entirely clear if the IBM Tivoli Live offering will also target MSPs serving SMBs and the mid-market, even if they did, not sure if the MSPs will appreciate justifying a even higher price point to their customers.
The cost for managing 500 devices through agents with reporting (can a management system be useful without any reports ?) works out to be a whopping $36,000 per month or $432,000 per year and an additional $13K as one time setup fee. May be it is much lower than IBM Tivoli’s usual costs of the traditional systems, but still is way out of range of mid-market expectations.
Compare this to ManageEngine OpManager On-Demand which is currently in beta. When the service goes live it will be at an all-inclusive price tag of $5 or less per device per month, with absolutely no setup or one time fee. Whats more, the service will support both businesses to manage their own IT infrastructure and MSPs to manage their client’s infrastructure. Simple to setup and get going and 15 times cost effective than IBM Tivoli Live.
Nevertheless we, at ManageEngine On-Demand, are very excited that IBM has entered this space making it clear ‘SaaS for IT management’ is here to stay.
I am not sure if the post writer knows much about IBM Tivoli ??? strange comparison ,, cost is not every thing,,
Every thing has its right price
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