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Manage the entire application lifecycle, across System i and distributed environments, with ONE integrated solution. 
MKS's Implementer for change management on System i integrates seamlessly with MKS Integrity for process and workflow, to manage the application lifecycle from requirements through source management to deployment, across all platforms. Go to http://www.mks.com/solutions to learn more.
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Newsworthy and Noteworthy
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May 3, 2008: Volume 10, Number 18
April 26, 2008: Volume 10, Number 17
April 19, 2008: Volume 10, Number 16
April 12, 2008: Volume 10, Number 15
April 5, 2008: Volume 10, Number 14
March 29, 2008: Volume 10, Number 13
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Copyright © 1996-2008 Guild Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Guild Companies, Inc., 50 Park Terrace East, Suite 8F, New York, NY 10034
Privacy Statement 
To say that Hewlett-Packard has wanted to be a powerhouse in IT services is a bit of an understatement. Almost straight out of the gate in 2000, then-new chief executive officer Carly Fiorina, the first non-HPer to run the company, tried to do a $17 billion deal with the IT consultancy arm of accountant PriceWaterhouse Coopers and failed, which IBM accomplished two years later with $3.5 billion just as HP had taken a left turn and acquired Compaq for $20 billion in 2001. The Compaq deal gave HP enterprise servers, storage, and some services. But nothing like the $13.9 billion acquisition today of Electronic Data Systems.
Microsoft yesterday issued four security patches for its products, including one patch that fixes a critical zero day vulnerability in a Windows component that is currently being exploited on the Web. All told, Microsoft patched six flaws yesterday, including four critical flaws that attackers could use to take complete control of affected systems.
In its quest to compete with Google for Internet utility computing supremacy, Microsoft is ramping up its construction of data centers to new, cloud-like heights. According to Debra Chrapaty, the corporate VP in charge of Microsoft's datacenters, the company is installing 10,000 new servers per month into its data centers. The monumental task is made somewhat easier thanks to recent advances in using steel shipping containers as turnkey data centers that can be dropped off practically anywhere.
Microsoft yesterday revealed pricing details of Windows Small Business Server 2008 and Windows Essential Business Server 2008. With pricing starting at about $1,100 and $5,500, respectively, the products should give customers a decent break compared to purchasing the bundles' components individually. But more importantly, Microsoft is giving customers a break on client access licenses (CALs). Microsoft also announced a "public preview" of these products, but it's not clear how interested parties can participate.
There is a lot of talk today about global warming, carbon footprints, and businesses "going green." In fact, in the opinion of many, energy consumption and environmental impact are among the most important issues presently facing society. These issues are particularly pertinent to IT for two reasons. First, IT consumes significant energy resources. IT organizations must therefore be fully engaged in any corporate effort to "go green." Second, IT organizations are under extraordinary pressure to do more with less. As energy costs rise, those costs consume a greater percentage of already-tight budgets.
In an effort to expand its footprint in the X64 server space and use every advantage it can bring to bear on customer sales, server and operating system maker Sun Microsystems is this week officially rolling out an updated "Galaxy" X64 server line based on the "Barcelona" quad-core Opteron 2000 and 8000 series. The revamping of the Galaxy line includes three new machines, two of which are akin to existing designs already launched using Intel Xeon processors, as well as updates to two existing Galaxy products.
Forget breaking the petaflops barrier, which by the way no supercomputer cluster has done officially yet but probably will on the next iteration in the fall of the Top 500 semi-annual listing of global supers. Supercomputer makers are setting their sights on 10 petaflops and beyond already. Last week, NASA's Ames Research Center announced that it has picked long-time partner Silicon Graphics and chip maker Intel to build its next generation supercomputer, called Pleiades, based on Xeon processors.
Lifecycle management is intertwined with business process management, which is another way of saying best practices for project management. It supports organizational structure and skill requirements through procedures that control IT department processes and change by monitoring workflow and the quality of service. We've come a long way from software change management, which is hugely important in application development environments, but just one aspect of lifecycle management the way it is viewed by Matt Scholl, president and COO at Aldon, which announced one new and two upgraded products last week.
Former Magic Software CEO and president Eitan Naor will be in Israeli court today in an attempt to regain his position following his abrupt dismissal last month. Naor, who was hired less than a year ago as part of an executive shake-up at the troubled software vendor, was ousted in late April following a disagreement with the board. Meanwhile, the company tried its best to move forward by announcing that its iBOLT integration software can now be purchased online at Salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace.
MKS this month released a new version of its change management solution for the IBM i OS, Implementer 2008. Making the software easier for developers to use was the main focus of this release, which brought more than 200 changes, including support for IBM's latest i OS development tools, and the elimination of system state programs. The company also warned investors that its revenues jumped more than 66 percent in its most recent quarter, largely the result of one big deal.
With the Power Systems convergence more or less accomplished, on paper at least if not in the minds and data centers of System i and System p customers, and with Bill Zeitler, general manager of IBM's Systems and Technology Group retiring on August 1 and the company's supply chain expert, Bob Moffatt, taking over the server unit at that time, tongues are a-wagging about the long-term future of the i platform. It was a coincidence that Neil Palmer's article in this newsletter last week, There's No i in Future, But Is There a Future in i?, came out at the same time as IBM chairman and chief executive officer, Sam Palmisano, announced Zeitler's departure, but this story also got people to thinking about the long-term support within IBM for the i platform.
Way back when, in the dawn of time--well, about a decade ago when IBM first caught the Java bug and decided that this would be the language of choice on its commercial servers and their operating systems--the software engineering teams in Rochester, Minnesota, and Toronto, Ontario, worked diligently to take advantage of the 64-bit addressing that OS/400 had and that many Unixes of the time lacked. The idea was simple: If Java was going to be the imposed lingua franca for future application development, then OS/400 would speak it fluently--and fast.
Dr. Masaru Emoto has a gentle, curious face and a facile mind with which he probes the bumpy intersection of science and metaphysics. Using a dark-field microscope with photographic capabilities, he researches the effects of external factors on the molecular structure of water. Not just such obvious influences as pollution, but much more esoteric factors not commonly thought to possess substance-altering properties, such as thoughts, words, and music.
The ability to teleport running applications around the network--what most vendors are calling live migration these days, but which comes in various names and server virtualization flavors--is probably one of the coolest technologies to come along in the data center in quite some time. And it may turn out to be the technology that pushes server virtualization through its tipping point, finally making such virtualization truly mainstream.
While application software giant SAP has made a lot of noise in recent months before and after the launch of its "A1S" Business ByDesign suite of online, SaaS-style applications, that software ramp is taking longer than expected and therefore SAP needs to double down with its existing licensed software products to attack the small and medium business space. And to do that well, SAP needs to rely on its key platform partners, particularly IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
Hoping to build some confidence in its processor roadmaps, Advanced Micro Devices this week is talking more specifically about its Opteron and Athlon X64 processor plans between now and 2010. With the difficulties of the "Barcelona" quad-core Rev F Opterons for two-socket and larger machines behind it and the "Budapest" quad-core variants for single-socket boxes coming this quarter, AMD has taken a hard look at its roadmaps and made some important changes--changes that should improve its chances of keeping pace with a resurgent Intel.
