Licensing price was very competitive compared to Jive or SharePoint. Open source was not feature complete and would have caused a much more complex roll out project. This is a very “cost efficient” offering. We went from zero to pilot with business within eight weeks.

There are basically two subscriptions; one with email included and one without. Subscription is for a minimum of 12 months. There are some add-ons like archiving and audio meetings which you can also take out. I would strongly advise prospective customers to work with an IBM Business Partner who can help explain the licensing and pricing. Special bid pricing is always available for large customers.

The pricing policy is flexible. There is no complex licensing model and it is quite simplified.

For pricing, look to see if it is site licensed, or by unit. A unit can be users, core, etc. Are there costs to run this as a cold site, in the event of a D/R situation? Are there volume discounts involved? Look at competing products that do similar functions and compare pricing. Look to see if you have corporate discounts.

I would recommend that everyone adopt the cloud version. There is too much constant maintenance to be performed on the on-premise version that does not allow focusing on adoption strategies.

Learn and understand the different product offerings and pricing models and note the difference between cloud, hybrid, and on-premises solutions.

I advise only buying a few licenses and test different solutions among a group of employees from different departments with different experience for at least half a year. Then make a list of features they like and don’t like and ask them in what situations the solution will help them with their daily work. After getting the pros and cons of the solution, the decision should be made buying the license.

Using IBM Connections as a standalone product to replace the intranet is not enough. Further investment is required for a landing page, either from IBM solutions, or from any of their partners.

This is not something that I manage.

Pricing is not so “easy to access”; licencing is for a single user.

Check IBM licensing.

Regarding pricing, the product is far from the cheapest in the market, but I would advise to never pay the list price. There is a lot of negotiation room from the IBM side. So use that and defend your own position hard!

Some IBM business partners offer very attractive prices if you combine Connections licenses with one of their add-on solutions.

The price should be lower. The pricing model should count concurrent users, not named users. Otherwise, a large company will be reluctant to use it as there are too many named users.

The licensing for the two editions is more or less the same, although I think IBM solutions are cheap for the value they provide. However, the market does not seem to acknowledge this point.

I did not work on licensing or pricing.

When looking for a vendor, price is the most important factor for us.

There a bundles available containing other IBM Solutions. This could be worth looking in. Cloud is also available if required.

IBM is still cheaper in the end. IBM Connections runs out-of-the-box. Other vendors need customizations in order to get what you need.