Big Blue's Software Gurus Rethink Systems
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The AS/400 Division and its affiliated Rochester Lab and manufacturing facility has brought some of the key innovations in systems to market ever created byIBM--dense DRAM, magnetoresistive disk heads and dense disk drives, 64-bit PowerPC processor, relational database technology, server virtualization hypervisors, the list goes on--and that made Big Blue a player in the systems market when they were on the cutting edge and that still make it a player today. But the reality of the situation is that Rochester is no longer a center of gravity for systems in the way it was in the past. READ MORE >

IBM Throws The Books At Big Power7 Shops
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are shopping for a big bad box to run IBM i, AIX, or Linux--or a combination of the three--then Big Blue has a deal for you on its enterprise-class Power 770, 780, and 795 servers. The deal that IBM offered to customers of System p5 590, System p5 595 machines in October 2007 and then in March 2010 on the Power 595 in the wake of the initial Power7-based servers, which came out a month earlier. READ MORE >

Fiserv Alleges FIS Infringed On Patents For Online Payment Software
by Alex Woodie

Fiserv this month filed a lawsuit in federal court against rival IBM i banking software provider Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) and its Metavante subsidiary over alleged violation of its patents relating to online payments. The alleged violations involve patents held by Fiserv's subsidiaries, CheckFree and CashEdge, that describe online financial activities, such as conducting account-to-account transfers, creating electronic transaction pick lists, and making payments on behalf of others. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Angry Hurd
by Hesh Wiener

Oracle sure has headaches. It is not selling enough software to please investors. It isn't making its numbers in hardware, either. It is governed by a two-headed executive reporting to CEO Larry Ellison. One of the presidents, Mark Hurd, is trying to get beyond the airing of a lawyer's demand letter that turned his private folly into public obloquy. As a result, loyal Larry Ellison is saddled with his distracting, maladroit prince when he sorely needs to be fully focused, playing at the top of his game. READ MORE >