Open Source Servers
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Corporate computing on machines that we can recognizably call electronic data processing systems--and what we now call servers--is coming up on its silver anniversary. The world has consumed a truly staggering amount of computing capacity and has devoured countless varieties of chip and server architectures, operating systems, programming languages, and middleware. But consumption is not a goal in and of itself--unless you are an IT vendor selling wares. Rather than consume what vendors feed us, it is time for the companies that buy servers to have more say in how servers get cooked and what server technologies we consume. READ MORE >

Re-Energizing ISVs Is a Tough Chore for IBM
by Alex Woodie

With the iSeries community of ISVs descending upon Chicago this week for the semi-annual COMMON conference, IBM's iSeries Initiative for Innovation will be front and center. This program to bolster the iSeries is the biggest move IBM has made to shore up its ISV and application base in years, but does it go far enough to inject new life into the ecosystem? Some say it's a good move, but they add that it comes too late to stop the inevitable slide. READ MORE >

Book Excerpt: The All-Everything Machine
by Brian Kelly

There is no better kept secret in the computer industry than the new eServer i5 from IBM. Another secret of which most modern computerists are unaware is that IBM makes the finest, most architecturally elegant, most usable, most productive, and most affordable computer system of all time. That system is the iSeries i5, the all-everything machine, and though its birth was on May 4, 2004, its advanced underpinnings go back well over 30 years. That's an awful long time for any company to keep such a secret, but my speculation is that today's IBM is getting ready to change all that. READ MORE >

As I See It: Social Insecurity
by Victor Rozek

Back when I was beginning my first career in what was then called Data Processing, I was befriended by a woman who inadvertently changed my life with a single observation. At the time we met, she held the highest ranking position of any woman in the company. As an executive riding the crest of the Silicon Valley boom, I figured her future was bright, limitless, and secure. But then she did the damnedest thing. She resigned. READ MORE >

  But Wait, There's More

Oracle Rains on SAP's Retek Parade . . . IBM Chops pSeries 670 and 690, Holds Back on Cuts for iSeries 870 and 890 . . . HelpSystems Partners with XopanTech in Mexico . . . Oracle Tops Relational Database Market in 2004, Says IDC . . . Jedox Open Source Multidimensional OLAP Server Coming in May . . . IBM Contributes 30 Projects to SourceForge . . . READ MORE >

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