EWLC price increase of up to 5%

In reference to my previous post, I first thought of paraphrasing the title for this announcement : 'They shoot mainframers, don't they ?' But I guess it wouldn't be very informative and I really wanted the message to get through.

So today IBM made this announcement : 'Price Changes in monthly Entry Workload License Charges (EWLC) on selected IBM System z Software Products(ZA11-1029)'. You know already enough when you see the well-known words 'Prince Change'. This is usually not very good news, to say the least. The text is very simple :

Today, IBM announces up to 5% increase in monthly Entry Workload License Charges (EWLC) on selected IBM System z software products .
Increased monthly charges on these Entry WLC products will be effective with the billing period that starts on or after January 1, 2012.

EWLC pricing is the variable MLC pricing on most BC machines nowadays. So I guess nearly every BC z/OS customer will be involved. It says "selected" software products, but I have no clue how many or how little products are involved. Worst case scenario : your EWLC pricing will go up by 5% starting on January 1, 2012.

I'm referring to the EMEA announcement but I guess this will be announced worldwide.