IBM Gives Pink Slips to 1,000 or More at Server Group
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Probably about the only thing that is more difficult than hiring people is firing people. But the managers at IBM's Server Group, which is an umbrella organization covering Big Blue's four current server product lines as well as the forgotten NUMA-Q line, got the task of handing out 1,000 or more pink slips last week just before the Memorial Day holiday weekend got rolling. IBM has not made any official announcements, and all the reported layoffs are based on rumors and internal emails. READ MORE >

Microsoft Acquires Retail App Specialist; Sage Objects to Navision Deal
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Microsoft clearly sees that the application software market as its way back to growth and profits. Last week, the company quietly absorbed another Windows application software vendor, Sales Management Systems, that specializes in retail and point of sale (POS) applications. The SMS acquisition came to light just as Sage Group went to court in Denmark to contest Microsoft's $1.3 billion acquisition of Navision. Sage is the UK application vendor that is the main rival to Microsoft's Great Plains unit and Navision. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Cotton Blather
by Hesh Wiener

You would think that computer companies would eventually learn to spot areas where standards make so much sense they are obviously inevitable, and develop their products accordingly. But they do not. A current example of this foolishness is the blade server market. Blade servers are an awful lot like the racks of servers everyone already has, with one basic exception: Instead of the customer wiring all the gizmos in the rack together and managing the mess, blade servers have the wiring built in and include system management tools.
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Network-LINK Monitors Physical Environment of Data Centers
by Alex Woodie

It's 2 a.m. and there's water on your data center floor. The temperature in rack 13 just went up another three degrees, endangering your brand-new xSeries blades. Somebody forgot to close (and lock) the door to your RAID 5 array, located in rack two. The UPS just stopped working. Do you have a way to identify such problems, unless a staff person happens to report it? You probably don't, but Network-LINK just started shipping a product that will identify such events. READ MORE >

Reader Feedback and Insights

We value your feedback and your insights into the OS/400 market. Feel free to drop us a letter to the editor and we will post them in a reader feedback column associated with this newsletter. READ MORE >