IBM Hopes New Financing Options Spur End-Of-Year SalesIBM Hopes New Financing Options Spur End-Of-Year Sales

Hoping to spur some end-of-year shopping among midsize and large companies that have shown no signs of loosening the purse strings, IBM on Monday unveiled a new set of financing options for enterprise customers.

Sounding much like a car dealer, IBM said it will give qualified buyers a 90-day "triple zero" offering--zero down payment with zero payments and zero interest until 2003. In addition, IBM will provide low-rate financing plans, with interest as low as 4.2% on selected hardware products. On the software side, the vendor is touting interest rates as low as 3.1% for one-time-charge software such as WebSphere and DB2 database products.

IBM is also sharpening its focus on the midsize market by dropping the minimum transaction amount required for financing eligibility to $25,000.