IBM Hit by Financial Services Slowdown in Q3
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Financial services companies, particularly among large enterprises based in the United States, slammed the brakes on IT spending in the third quarter and nearly gave IBM a financial haircut. Thanks to very strong bookings in past quarters for services that were delivered between July and September and to the continually weakening U.S. dollar, IBM's financial cookies were saved despite the weakness in the financial services sector. IBM's sales were up 6.6 percent to $24.1 billion and net income rose by 6.3 percent to $2.4 billion; earnings per share, thanks to an accelerated share repurchasing funded by debt earlier this year, rose by 15.9 percent to $1.68 per share. READ MORE >

Top Mainframe Stories from Around the Web

(CNN Money) IBM has delivered the 1.9 release of its flagship z/OS operating system and is now tweaking its z/VSE operating system, used mostly on low-end mainframes, to help it play better with Linux running on mainframes. At the GUIDE SHARE Europe (GSE) mainframe user group meeting in Germany last Friday, IBM put out a technical preview of the forthcoming z/VSE 4.2, which will be available in the fourth quarter of 2008. Yes, that is a long, long time from now. With mainframe sales in a slump, you can bet IBM is going to be opening the doors to talk about future technology a lot more now than it has been in past years as it works to get the next generation of mainframe hardware and software to market next year. READ MORE >

(Enterprise Systems) Oracle may be hot on its heels to try to acquire the company for $6.7 billion, but at BEA Systems, it is business as usual. Last week, the company updated its two key mainframe-related software products, the Tuxedo transaction monitor and the related Services Architecture Leveraging Tuxedo, or SALT. BEA has also added a new monitoring and debugging tool for transaction processing workloads based on Tuxedo called the Tuxedo System and Application Monitor. (So this is monitoring a monitor?) READ MORE >

(The Star) IBM and the SHARE/GUIDE Malaysia user group have created a partnership with Multi Media University (MMU) in Malaysia to help tech students about the architecture, benefits, and operations of mainframes. Under the arrangement, IBM is offering 20 Share/Guide user group members full reimbursement on course costs associated with selected mainframe courses at MMU. This is the reverse of normal IBM Academic Initiative practices, which usually entails working with local colleges and universities to develop mainframe coursework and then trying to attract students to the courses. READ MORE >

(TechWorld) Mainframe software maker Compuware and IT industry trade rag ComputerWorld worked together to do a survey of mainframe shops and figure out how they are expanding and using mainframe capacity. As it turns out, according to this whitepaper that resulted from the survey, mainframe MIPS growth among those companies surveyed is growing at 10 percent per year, which is outrunning overall IT budgets, growing at 7 percent on average, and company revenues, up 9 percent on average. READ MORE >

(BestMainframeJobs.com) Job seekers and employee searchers have a new Web site that posts resumes and job openings for folks with the unique skills to operate and manage big iron. Available positions can be searched and sorted by job title, employer, location, and date posted. Current listings include jobs in Michigan and Wisconsin. READ MORE >

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

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

December 2-4 -- Amelia Island, Florida - The second annual Gartner CIO Summit kicks off, with James Popkin, a research group vice president and author of a new book called IT and the East, will be delivering the keynote address to the CIOs in attendance, explaining how China and India will fundamentally change the IT environment. (Like they haven't already, right?) The event has lots of time to hob-nob and network with fellow CIOs. There's almost certainly some time to play a few rounds of golf, too. 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 >

February 24-29, 2008 -- Orlando, Florida - The SHARE mainframe user group will be hosting its spring event in sunny Florida, and will be focusing on two areas that are affecting mainframe shops in a big way these days: Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) application software design and server virtualization and consolidation. As usual, SHARE will also include the Technology Exchange Expo, where vendors can hawk their mainframe wares and attendees can try to find the tools to solve their IT woes. LEARN MORE >