Competitive x86 Sales Play Activation Guide Script
Thomas Lyons
January 2010
Slide # 1
Hello, I am Thomas Lyons, from the STG WW Demand Generation Marketing team.
Today, I will be taking you through the details of the Competitive x86 Takeout sales play.
This sales play highlights STG’s system leadership and targets installed HP, Dell and Sun
x86 systems customers.
Now everyone who offers x86 systems – HP, Dell, Sun and IBM, uses processors for
Intel. Some customers assume that because of this fact that all the systems are the same.
Exposing this fallacy is the heart of the IBM System x value proposition and the heart of
this sales play.
2009 was a big year for IBM System x – we took share from HP, Dell and Sun, and grew
almost 40%. The x86 market place is a great opportunity for IBM. IBM’s systems lead
in the market in performance, reliability and in TCO. IBM’s Systems offers the fastest,
most powerful, most resilient servers in the market. And IBM is investing in systems –
including new System x products each year. IBM System x has the roadmaps, HP, Dell
and Sun do not
IBM systems leadership is about more than hardware. IBM Systems offer our clients
systems software that helps them optimize their systems and operations. Unlike HP, Dell
and Sun, IBM offers clients a choice of systems that are optimized for specific workloads,
not a blades for everything approach that others are pursuing.
Let’s now look more closely at the Sales play.
Slide # 2
The materials I will review with you in this presentation will include:
The purpose of the sales play, an overview of the Sales plays which should help you
better understand opportunity for IBM and where we see the best opportunities to win
Our customers have proven the value IBM provides them, with strong references and
compelling value propositions they have benefited from moving from HP, Dell and Sun
to IBM’s System x.
I will continue on to discuss the Reason of call and why customers and prospects might
interested in talking with you and your sales and marketing teams.
Throughout the presentation there is a rich library of collateral, documentation, selling
resources and value propositions that support the Competitive x86 Takeout sales play.
At the end of the call, you should have a good understanding of the opportunity and how
to qualify clients.
Slide # 3
The Sales Play activation guide is your starting point to get your marketing and sales
teams off and running with the Competitive x86 sales play.
The next few charts will break down your selling activities into simple steps that make
selling IBM System x to installed HP, Dell and Sun customers easier and highlight
specific customers where IBM has been successful.
No sale can happen unless the seller can explain the solution in a high level conversation
with an executive, explain the benefits of the IBM offering and talk about how other
customers have achieved similar benefits.
This Sales play activation guide provides a Reason of call, Elevator pitch, customer
success stories and links to additional tools and resources for your sales and marketing
teams to utilize to win the STG business at installed competitive x86 accounts.
Slide # 4
We talked earlier about the situation that installed competitive x86 customers are facing.
They want enterprise class systems -- performance, reliability, and flexibility. They want
these things on x86 technology. Only IBM can offer that combination.
The Competitive x86 sales play is designed to capitalize on the unique combination – the
systems leadership and x86 technology that ONLY IBM offers to HP, Dell and Sun x86
clients
HP, Dell and Sun x86 clients can lower their costs by switching to IBM System x
systems -- - because of IBMs Systems leadership, TCO Leadership: Leadership in Price
Performance, in Energy efficiency and in Virtualization.
IBM can provide installed HP, Dell and Sun x86 clients with stable technology roadmaps,
-- with hardware solutions that are workload specific, -- with systems that will meet their
business needs – now and in the future.
Now lets talk about where you should look, a typical target customers includes:



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Installed HP, Dell and Sun x86 clients, who have older racks and pre-Nahalem
blades
Clients that have concerns about where they can go next
Clients that have low performing systems that cannot support growing application
and database workloads
Are experiencing costly and inefficient infrastructure with out of control budgets
and server sprawl
These are the clients that you should be looking to target with the Competitive x86 Sales
Play.
Slide # 5
Lets now look at what benefits clients can expect by moving from HP, Dell and Sun x86
Systems to IBM system x:
First, IBM System x will help customers reduce data center costs, with a proven strategy
to simply their infrastructure.

An HP client with DL360 Systems can consolidate 11 systems onto one HS22,
with an ROI as fast as 6 months, while reducing power by 93% and space by 95%

If you had 500 older HP servers – you could consolidate them onto just 20 IBM
3950 M2 Servers
HP clients can reduce costs Intelligently
An ITG study showed the combined 3 year costs for IBM x86 servers and disk systems
averages 16.4% less than DELL and 15.3% less than HP equivalents – that is real savings.
Lets look at an Oracle Data Warehouse customer and Compare IBM System x to HP
Blades solution –
1 TB – 6TB solutions built around IBM System 3850 M2 Servers and DS 3400 Disk
Systems averaged 67% less than solutions built around HP Blades
On the right side of this chart is a link to the IBM Systems Migration Assurance – a free
set of IBM services to help clients PLAN, JUSTIFY and IMPLEMENT a migration from
HP, Dell and Sun x86 Systems to IBM System x.
Slide # 6
To make it easier to call on competitive x86 Customers, we have outlined 3 reasons of
call to help you prepare with to discuss the opportunity with clients.
Unlike HP, Dell and Sun x86, IBM System x can help Clients:
1 – Save over 93% on energy costs
An HP client with 166 HP 2 socket rack servers can replace them with a single chassis of
14 HS22 Blades and save $64K in energy costs alone, that is a ROI less than one year.
2 – Lower Costs even further – up to 44% - using IBM Management tools
Manage a large number of physical and virtual System x servers with IBM Systems
director 6.1 and save on administration costs – up to 35% running windows and 44% on
Linux.
Deploy 80% more hardware per administrator – save $21K per year
3 – Reduce IT footprint by more than 95%
Migrate 166 HP 2 socket 1U servers to IBM Bladecenter E & 14 HS22 – get the same or
better performance with 5% of the space.
That equals $19.9K of floor space savings.
Total savings identified here is $95,000 per year.
Slide # 7
On the left are the key seller actions that you should take to execute the play. What is
most important here is the resources that are available to help you.
The IBM Systems Consolidation Evaluation Tool (Alinean) , IBM Server Makeover
Analysis, Migration Factory are tools that you can use to convince clients that moving to
IBM will help them lower costs and improve service.
For example, often companies know they have issues but they can not provide
quantifiable details on problems such as system performance, bottlenecks or financial
justifications to replace older systems with newer servers and storage. IBM has the tools
to assist the customer in not only identifying the problem but justifying the solution.
The IBM Systems Consolidation Evaluation Tool (Alinean) is used to provide a detailed
cost analysis from HP to IBM – it documents the ROI and additional financial metrics
that will help the customer quantify that there is a better way to invest in systems and the
significant business benefit can be achieved as they make the change to IBM.
The Salesplay dashboard is a single place you can go to get the latest selling materials,
collateral, and references to help you in your calls.
The IBM System x Competitive Portal links you to the latest System x competitive
information.
The IBM Systems Migration Assurance is a set of free tools to help you and your client
plan, justify and implement a migration from HP.
The pictures you see in the lower right - are all hot links – click on the sales play
dashboard to get more information on Key Resources.
Slide # 8
Slides 8 & 9 contain a story or narrative that you can use to prepare for meetings with
customers.
They outline steps to prepare to pursue installed HP, Dell and Sun x86 systems
opportunities with the tools and value propositions IBM provides to our clients.
1- The first step is preparation:
What is the reason we are calling on the customer? To discuss the significant business
opportunity that IBM System x represents to installed x86 customers
What is the IBM value? Market leading systems – Market leading Performance, TCO, fit
for Purpose. A history of investing in Innovation, Technology and Systems.
What is the offer (s)?
The Systems Consolidation Evaluation Tool – it is free – it can help quantify the savings
of moving from HP to IBM Systems.
2 The next step is setting up the customer call
What is the customer probably thinking?
What are the value propositions that you want to discuss to get the client to agree to a call,
meeting, or further discussion
Slide # 9
3. Have the direct and TCO Savings ready
Use the Systems Consolidation Evaluation Tool – have printed output that show the real
financial savings
4. Tell why IBM is unique – how we are different than HP
See the examples – IBM is the leader in Systems, Virtualization, TCO and Systems
Innovation – IBM System x builds a better system - does more with Intel Processors than
Dell, HP and Sun.
Together, these two slides help you understand the important questions customers are
facing and the IBM proof points. It is a great story for IBM.
Slide # 10
The 60 Second Elevator pitch should be the most valuable slide in this deck as it provides
the foundation for a quick sales call or conversation to a prospect to stimulate their
interest. It helps you prepare for a call, meeting, or further discussion with an installed
competitive x86 customer. For executives, you have to be able to tell the story and get
their interest quickly.
Imagine you are in the elevator and only have 60 seconds:
How do you get their attention in 10 seconds?
Point out the significant business opportunity for x86 clients – to consolidate, to save lots
of money – Talk about how other clients moved to IBM system x and how they reduced
their costs.
Talk about the real life examples we have with customers who moved from other x86
systems to IBM – savings of $64K in energy costs, $21K in management costs, $19K in
floor space. -- $95K in total in this example – every year.
Remind them that IBM has free services to help them evaluate their options. Ask them if
you can follow up to discuss their specific situation.
Asking questions to the customer, proposing IBM value propositions and offering tools
such as Alinean and Migration Factory stimulate the customers interest in IBM and
establish a commitment by the customer to allow us to run the tools to help them identify
possible bottlenecks and cost improvements with IBM.
Slide # 11
The last two pages in this slide deck are called the Sparklers - two pages with detailed
information about the sales plays and links to additional information.
Important sections on Page 11 are the Overview, Pain Points, Offerings and Sales
Enablement for IBMers and Business Partners – where you can link to the play dashboard.
Slide # 12
The second page of the play sparkler – with Seller call to action, detailed offerings and
customer references.
Slide #13
Special Notices
Slide #14
Special Notices
I hope the last 15 minutes has helped you :
1.) Know more about the opportunity for STG by replacing installed HP, Dell and Sun
x86 servers with IBM system x
2.) Understand how strong the IBM value proposition for customers is for installed HP,
Dell and Sun x86 server clients
3.) Learn how to get started with the play materials, references and tools
Thank you for the time today for me to introduce you to the Competitive x86 Takeout
Sales Play .
Good Luck in 2010