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Comment by cglace | Hacker News Reader

Having worked at IBM briefly this is only partially true.

The way I understood it, IBM has a system called "blue dollars" or "blue bucks" I forget which one. Basically, groups within IBM are given an allotment of credits they can spend to "buy" other IBM products.

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Ex IBM'er here and I recall it as Blue Dollars. I was in one of the UK labs so 'bucks' isn't a term we really use.

When it comes to software, you pretty much can use any IBM software you want (or are told to). A lot of the Rational products were heavily pushed for teams to use, although I think you had to justify why you use it. This caused some contention, as I worked in automated UI testing and the capabilities of IBM products vs open source alternatives varied quite widely. It was always fun justifying your decision to management when the IBM product didn't match your needs.

But when there is a service cost things are different. I got pulled into my manager's office being showed my bandwidth and storage cost of my Lotus Notes emails and was heavily encouraged to download my emails locally as the department was charged. I think there were similar considerations when it came to using backup software into their TSM - I don't remember exactly but have a feeling you needed management approval to use it.

Then you have the consideration of building one product from another. For example, I worked on WebSphere Application Server which was the app server of many other IBM products. There you have the consideration of which departments earn the revenue when a core product is shared.

So, the software is free for the lab and with no clear limit so long as you fill out the forms and such?

Yeah I think so. It's been 5 years since I left so my memory of the detail isn't a goods I would like :)

Appreciate it. Now I just gotta figure out if this applies to companies they acquire and are integrating into their offerings. That's the original comment I posted: Compose should use their tech where it's good and they get it free/cheap.

This is my understanding as well - you don't just get all the IBM software you want, but there are ways to internally acquire what you need on funded projects (or similarly, I would assume, acquisitions).

It's worth noting that more and more of IBM's software/platforms are cloud-based and even publicly available (e.g. Bluemix) so I imagine the landscape for this type of software acquisition is changing even internally.

You hit the nail on the head. There is some kind of free policy but the overall one is called "blue dollars." This just means what they charge internally for stuff and has less value than the "green dollars." I found this illustration from 2003:

http://www.petrovgroup.com/examples/IBM%202003%20HW%20Struct...

I doubt they'll give up $780+ million any time soon. However, my proposal in another comment to at least temporarily bill software at cost or for free might benefit them considerably in both green and blue dollars.

All really strange to a guy like me whose companies only dealt with green money and just used cost for internal expenses. :)

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