Leasing and Financing Are Important IT Tools, Says IDC
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Whether or not the budget money is your own or you are spending it on behalf of your company for its benefit, it is often wiser to seek outside financing or lease a capital asset than to sink precious funds into acquiring it directly. This is exactly what IT procurement professionals confirmed when they were interviewed by IDC to reckon the affect of leasing and financing on their IT purchasing decisions. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories from Around the Web

(SearchDataCenter) Guess who just announced a line of "plug-compatible" mainframe servers that simultaneously run z/OS, HP-UX, Windows and Linux? If you guessed Platform Solutions, you would be correct. The company claims its latest machines are capable of scaling from 26 MIPS to 2,000 MIPS. READ MORE >

(DMReview) You didn't hear it here first. The cries about leveraging the mainframe echo down the halls of lots of enterprises. Despite the wailing, most find that it's easier said than done, especially for companies that are looking at mountains of transaction data and wondering how the heck they are going to incorporate that into a service oriented architecture? READ MORE >

(ZDNet) It's really quite easy to jump into an SOA project and drown. Getting in over your head is as easy as falling off the proverbial log. Before this happens to you, consider taking an incremental approach--one business process at a time--service-enabling only the critical legacy assets needed for each project. It's the best way of keeping your head above water. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

See our full calendar of events at
http://www.itjungle.com/big/big-calendar.html

October 2 -- Irvine, California - Linking business process management and service oriented architecture to obtain long-term flexibility is the focus of this half-day session featuring IBM executives and industry analysts. Case studies describing how companies have achieved productivity gains and cost reductions will be highlighted along with advice on how to maximize return on investment. LEARN MORE >

October 4 -- Scottsdale, Arizona - Linking business process management and service oriented architecture to obtain long-term flexibility is the focus of this half-day session featuring IBM executives and industry analysts. Case studies describing how companies have achieved productivity gains and cost reductions will be highlighted along with advice on how to maximize return on investment. LEARN MORE >

October 8-11 -- Orlando, Florida - The IBM WebSphere Portal Technical Conference will feature the latest product upgrades and platform extensions for the popular middleware. Among the highlights will be an emphasis on faster deployment of composite applications, enhanced Web 2.0 support, simplified portal-based solutions, and increased integration with business processes. IBM product architects and developers, business partners, and customers will provide training, case studies, and best practices information. Certification testing will be available and a vendor expo will be included. LEARN MORE >

October 15-18 -- Dallas, Texas - More than 140 educational sessions, plus networking opportunities with IT managers, storage architects, and infrastructure professionals, and a vendor expo are combined at Storage Networking World, an event hosted by ComputerWorld. Guest speakers include Frank Abagnale, fraud and identity theft expert; James Onalfo, CIO of the New York City Police Department; Steve Fastook, Vice President of Technical and Commercial Operations at CNBC; Brian Cobb, Senior Vice President of Enterprise Systems Management at Fannie Mae, Parker Mabry, Senior Vice President and Manager of Network Systems Engineering at Morgan Keegan; and Joe Lacik, Senior Vice President, of Information Services at Aviall Services. LEARN MORE >

October 16 -- Cincinnati, Ohio - Linking business process management and service oriented architecture to obtain long-term flexibility is the focus of this half-day session featuring IBM executives and industry analysts. Case studies describing how companies have achieved productivity gains and cost reductions will be highlighted along with advice on how to maximize return on investment. LEARN MORE >

December 2-7 -- San Diego, California - The 33rd annual Computer Measurement Group conference, CMG2007, brings together data processing professionals interested in system evaluation to maximize performance measured in terms of response time, throughput, and through capacity management. Sessions are geared toward making enhancements to existing systems or designing new systems with the aim of providing adequate performance at a reasonable cost. The courses are divided into two groups. One group consists of platform agnostic sessions and provides attendees with basic knowledge that is independent of any specific hardware or operating system. The second group is platform specific specializing in operating systems such as z/OS, Windows, Unix and Linux. LEARN MORE >