But Wait, There's More

Congressman Introduces Bill That Could Curb Offshoring

The battle lines are being drawn between corporations and their workers, and it is now going to run right through the Congress. Last week, Representative Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, introduced a bill called the Defending American Jobs Act of 2004, which will prevent companies from getting any federal assistance--including grants, loans, subsidies, tax breaks, or guarantees--if their layoffs in the United States are deeper than those overseas. The bill would also start keeping a strict accounting of job rolls by corporations in the United States, assessing which ones are hiring, firing, and offshoring. The proposed law would also require companies that receive such government funds--and just about every major corporation in the country does get some form of corporate welfare so it can remain competitive in overseas markets--to provide statistics about pay rates for workers at home and abroad. There are so many ways that big corporations benefit from government largesse that it is hard to quantify the benefits they get from government, but it is sufficient to guess that not getting money from Uncle Sam would seriously affect their abilities to show profits.

"Companies should not be asking for U.S. government handouts if they want to secretly throw American workers out on the street while they are expanding employment overseas," Sanders said in introducing the bill. "The American people have a right to know when American companies are exporting our jobs overseas. And, the American people also have a right not to give corporate welfare to those companies that are leaving the United States for India, China, or Mexico." But Sanders, who tends to be one of the more outspoken members of the House, didn't stop there in upbraiding corporations for their short-sighted behavior. "In my view, it is an insult to the middle class of this country, that American taxpayer dollars are being used to provide loans, loan guarantees, grants, tax breaks and subsidies to huge and profitable corporations who then say to the American people: ‘Thanks for the welfare, chumps. But we're closing you're your plant and taking your job to China.' " Some 50 legislators in the House have backed the bill.

Several weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, of South Dakota, introduced the "Jobs for America" bill, which would force public companies to disclose how many jobs they are sending overseas, where they are going, and why they are being sent overseas. The proposed Senate law would require any company that lays off 15 or more workers to send those jobs overseas to give three months' notice to those employees and to send reports to the Department of Labor, so it can monitor the effects of offshoring.

SEC Extends Dates for Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

So How About an Opteron-Based IxS, IBM?

IBM has never been particularly aggressive about keeping the performance of its Integrated xSeries Server (IxS) co-processor for the iSeries at parity with the latest and greatest processors from Intel. But the growing popularity of the 64-bit Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices, their superior performance on 32-bit X86 applications compared to Intel chips, and the launch of two new low-power variants of the Opterons might mean that IBM should give some serious thought to delivering a uniprocessor IxS based on the AMD processors.

Generally speaking, a 2.2 GHz Opteron processor can run 32-bit commercial applications at around the same performance level as a 3 GHz Intel Xeon DP processor, and on applications that are memory intensive or require floating point performance, the difference between the Opteron and Xeon (in 32-bit mode only) is even larger. Right now, the fastest IxS card from IBM uses a single 2 GHz Xeon, so moving over to a single 2.2 GHz Opteron would add about 50 percent more performance and would also cut electricity usage from 103 watts down to 89 watts for the processor.

If IBM wanted to cram a lot of IxS cards into a single iSeries, the Xeon chips present a serious heating issue. But the new Opteron HE and Opteron EE chips, might give IBM a way to boost the performance of the IxS while at the same time reducing the heat inside the iSeries box. A normal 2.2 GHz Opteron runs at 1.5 volts and dissipates 89 watts of heat running at peak performance. AMD is sorting through its chip bins and finding processors that can run at the same clock speed but with a lower voltage--1.3 volts and 1.15 volts to be specific--while still providing the same performance. The Opteron HE chips run at 1.3 volts and emit only 55 watts running at 2.2 GHz, while the Opteron EE chips run at 1.15 volts and emit a stunningly low 30 watts of heat. AMD is charging a premium of a few hundred bucks for these low-power chips, of course, but OS/400 shops have never been shy of paying a premium for better technology.

Lastly, by offering an Opteron-based IxS today, IBM can get customers in the position of supporting 64-bit applications. IBM will not have to wait until the "Nocona" Xeon chips with 64-bit extensions are announced in the second quarter and software support comes out this summer. An Opteron IxS bought today can run in 32-bit mode now with Windows 2003 and shift to 64-bit mode when Microsoft delivers the Opteron and Xeon-64 versions of Windows 2003 later this year.

Lilly Software Offers Money-Back Guarantee on Lean Manufacturing Suite

If you are in the manufacturing business, as a large number of OS/400 shops are, you might want to ponder a new offer from Lilly Software Associates. The company, which sells midrange ERP systems aimed at manufacturers on OS/400, Windows, Unix, Linux, and other proprietary platforms, has been pushing a set of add-ons to its Visual ERP suite, called Visual Easy Lean. These add on modules implement so-called "lean manufacturing" techniques, which is like just-in-time manufacturing on steroids and speed. Lilly Software is so confident that companies that implement Visual Easy Lean will see such good benefits that it is providing a money-back guarantee on the software license fees to installations of the program that do not meet the business-defined criteria within the first 180 days of implementation. Lilly says that customers can increase sales by an average of 10 percent, decrease lead times by as much as 90 percent, shrink inventories by 50 percent, and deliver products on time 90 percent of the time by using the lean manufacturing approach.

You can find out more about the "president's challenge" guarantee at lillysoftware.com/challenge.asp.

IBM Leads in Content Management Software

According to an analysis of the content management software market performed by WinterGreen Research, IBM is the market leader in terms of sales in the content management software market, with a 20 percent share of the market through the first three quarters of 2003. WinterGreen estimates that for the full year, content management software will account for a total of $1 billion in sales across all vendors, and forecasts that this market will grow to $2.1 billion by 2009. WinterGreen reckons that Documentum, acquired late last year by disk array maker EMC, was the number-two vendor in the content management software space, with 14 percent of the market in the first nine months of 2003, followed by Open Text with a 9 percent share. With no one vendor having a dominant position, it is still possible for a newcomer to enter the market, but both IBM and EMC have invested heavily in this space and intend to gain market share in the area. Microsoft certainly has aspirations in the CMS market, too, and has embrace the XML lingua franca that all of the other CMS players have adopted.

By the way, CMS software does more than manage HTML documents on a Web site, or at least enterprise-class CMS systems do. Increasingly, CMS programs have to manage XML documents, PDF documents, and various kinds of structured and unstructured data. One of the big drivers behind this market is having to comply with government reporting regulations, which force companies to archive information and communication over a long term.

SCO Sues First Unix, Linux Users Related to IBM Lawsuit

The SCO Group, which is embroiled in a number of different lawsuits, which it says are aimed at protecting its intellectual property and copyrights related to the Unix operating system, last week sued two customers--one running Unix and one running Linux--for violating its rights by using AIX or Linux without proper licensing.

SCO has been threatening for months that it would take this action, which it believes it must do to protect its rights over the Unix platform. IBM, which is being sued by SCO for $5 billion for allegedly violating its Unix license by moving Unix source code into Linux, has said it did no such thing and that its AIX license is irrevocable. And Novell, which sold SCO the rights to Unix a number of years ago, says that it never sold SCO the copyrights to Unix, and has absolved IBM and the Linux community of any wrongdoing, should there have been any. SCO is attempting to use two levers to exert its power over Unix. One is taking on IBM directly in the courts, and the other is to take on the Linux community indirectly through its installed base. In January 2004, SCO sent 1,500 letters to Linux shops telling them that they could license SCO's Unix content that it asserts is lurking inside Linux for $750 per processor, and avoid potential legal battles. Thus far, only one company has admitted to the IP licensing, a small service provider called EV1Servers.Net, which said last week that it had bought the IP license.

On the Unix front, SCO has chosen as its first AIX target none other than the car maker DaimlerChrysler. SCO sued DaimlerChrysler in Michigan state court this week. SCO has asked for the company to certify that its use of the Unix operating system is in accordance with the terms of the licensing that SCO offers to all Unix makers who have created Unixes based on the AT&T System V kernel, which it controls though acquisition. When SCO asked repeatedly for these certifications, DaimlerChrysler did not even reply. Hence, SCO decided to sue for an injunctive remedy in the courts through a jury by trial because DaimlerChrysler is violating the terms of its Unix license.

On the Linux front, SCO's first target is automotive parts retailer AutoZone, which is being sued in federal court in Nevada for violating SCO's copyrights because it is using Linux in its data centers and stores. AutoZone is incorporated in Nevada even though it is for all practical purposes headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. SCO wants immediate injunctive relief to compel AutoZone from continuing to use Linux and is seeking damages in a trial by jury.

Get the Latest OS/400 PTF Guide

Our partner DLB Associates has been keeping track of IBM's PTF updates to OS/400 and its related programs. Here are the latest OS/400 PTF Guides:

February 7

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March 6