Mainframes Still Matter. Let’s Give Them the Support They Deserve

Mainframes are stable, reliable systems.

Thanks to their unparalleled stability and reliability, mainframes still power the world’s leading businesses – especially banks, retailers and healthcare, who need to manage billions of secure transactions every day. And they’re definitely still in demand. In fact, IBM’s latest mainframe, the z16, was just introduced this April.

These high-performance computers are a significant investment, but one that comes with major benefits. Despite all the promises you hear about cloud computing, mainframes are still hard to beat in terms of speed, security, uptime and processing power. They can also last for over 10 years, run multiple operating systems at once, and offer compatibility – for both new and outdated applications.

Why are you paying top dollar for mainframe support?

Because mainframes are so stable and dependable, they don’t give rise to many issues. But if something does go wrong, it requires immediate attention – even a few minutes of downtime can lead to devastating financial and compliance risks for companies and their customers.

Businesses recognize the importance of keeping these systems in good shape, and maximizing the value of their existing investment. However, most IT departments don’t have the required expertise in- house. So, they turn to external support – generally the mega-vendor (like IBM) who manufactured the IBM Z series mainframe.

But customers often feel that they are not getting a high quality service from IBM. This may be due to shifting priorities and recurring layoffs of experienced staff by IBM.

And this perceived mediocre service is against very high charges from IBM who have been able to do so due to the lack, hitherto, of any real competition for support and maintenance for mainframe support and maintenance.

ibm z series mainframe

What does this have to do with Origina?

When Origina was founded over a decade ago, we wanted to offer a viable alternative to IBM® software support and maintenance – one with far better service, direct access to experienced, independent IBM® product experts, and a collaborative approach that puts users’ needs first.

And that’s exactly what we’ve been doing, with a focus on providing support and maintenance for legacy software – IBM® Passport Advantage and HCL® products, to be exact. Our global team is known for preventing and resolving issues far faster than vendor support teams, at a far lower cost. And because we’re in the business of supporting software (not selling it!), we can help customers maximize the value of their current investments without forcing them to continuously upgrade.

While we’ve been very happy focusing on this specific area of expertise, we started to hear rumblings that our customers wanted us to move beyond IBM® Passport Advantage products and start offering third-party software maintenance for mainframes as well.

So, at Empower, our annual customer conference on June 23, we revealed that we’re finally heeding their call. Starting now, we will provide third-party software maintenance (TPSM) for all IBM® perpetually licensed software products, on both open distributed systems AND mainframes.

Expanding our offering due to customer demand

Chris Lecosia, former Software Asset and Licensing Manager at Southern California Edison, was one of the strongest advocates for expanding our expertise into mainframes, saying, “If your driver is cost reduction, there’s no better game in town. The support is great, the relationship is great. The hands-on involvement from the Origina support staff and the experience and depth of the global IBM experts that Origina employs are second to none.

If you want to hear the story straight from Chris himself, listen to his conversation with Hari Candadai, Origina’s SVP, Service Innovation and Thought Leadership and Rowan O’Donoghue, Origina’s co-founder and CTO.

The same proven software maintenance, now available for mainframes

While we’ve only just started providing third-party support for IBM® Z mainframes, in reality this new offering is simply a natural evolution of what Origina does best.

According to Rowan O’Donoghue, Origina’s co-founder and CTO, “It’s the same tried and tested service – we’re now just extending it across Z mainframes. Our team of 600+ independent IBM experts are seasoned professionals who live for solving problems and customer satisfaction. Together, we’ll continue to deliver the same value we always have to our customers: the best available third-party software maintenance for half the price.”

If you want to learn more about third-party support for IBM® Z mainframes (or any perpetually licensed IBM® software products), please get in touch. We’ve love to have a conversation about your challenges and how we can help.

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