IBM and Fundamental May Be at an Impasse
by Hesh Wiener

The relationship between IBM and Fundamental Software that allowed FSI to sell the Flex-ES mainframe emulator may be coming to an end. On October 6, FSI's two main resellers, Cornerstone Systems and T3 Technologies, sent notices to customers and the Flex-ES community at large stating that their sales of new systems to IBM PartnerWorld Developers will have to cease at the end of October unless IBM and FSI can hammer out a new deal. Otherwise, the Flex-ES business could become strictly a maintenance and support operation. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories and Vendor Announcements

(Enterprise Systems) What would you do with $100 million dollars and the job of making the System z hardware and software business grow? We already know what the suits at Big Blue plan to do. (See the issue of Big Iron from two weeks ago if you've been vacationing on another planet.) This week we have some feedback from a few camps out in the mainframe universe. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) Lotus Notes has scored some productivity points with its latest release, which includes portability and productivity benefits such as loading the entire Notes application on a small USB device and adding tools that will become increasingly important to business collaboration, such as blogging and RSS feeds. READ MORE >

(IT Jungle) The costs associated with accessing z/OS hosts from Windows PCs or a Web browser can vary widely. What you pay for versus what you get might surprise you after doing a little competitive shopping, according to Seagull Software which has a new version of its emulation software ready. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

October 20 & 21 -- Chicago, Illinois - The Network and Systems Professionals Association annual conference, NaSTEC, features educational tracks on large systems/mainframes, distributed systems, and professional development and includes 24 total sessions. Topics include IT compliance, TCP/IP network health checks, and security, as well as others. LEARN MORE >

November 6-8 -- San Jose, California - The ECM West Conference and is an enterprise content and document management event showcasing the technologies and solutions that help align content and business processes. It focuses on data capture, storage, and management, with educational tracks on issues ranging from compliance and standards to information integration and accessibility. LEARN MORE >

December 3-8 -- Reno, Nevada - Performance and capacity management for enterprise computing systems is the focus for CMG2006 hosted by the Association of Systems Management Professionals. Session topics include software performance engineering, stress/load testing, benchmarking, BPM, BAM, and new technologies such as service-oriented architecture, and Web services. Specialized content is also provided for operating systems that include z/OS, Linux, Unix, and Windows. LEARN MORE >