Old Code Meets New Ideas in Latest App Modernization Projects
by Dan Burger

The heat is on. For all the talk about IT integration and innovation, words that get casually tossed around as if saying them was doing something, there is progress being made in the area of application modernization. The time for talk is turning into the time for action in the IBM AS/400 community, which IBM has renamed the iSeries, the System i, and now just IBM i. The lower case i, IBM used to be fond of saying, is for integration and innovation. READ MORE >

IBM Cuts Prices for Upgrades to Power 595s
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The big iron boxes in IBM's Power-based server lineup have always tended to come to market later than midrange and entry boxes. With the AS/400 and its progeny being predominantly a midrange platform, and the RS/6000 and its progeny proliferating in the low-end and only gradually coming to be known as a big iron box, it stands to reason that Big Blue would start the Power7 launch in the middle, with the Power 750, 770, and 780 servers. READ MORE >

Power 750 Servers Running i Get SAP Benchmarks
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Comparisons are odious, the old saying goes. But, that's what we do whenever we are buying any kind of electronics, and servers are no exception. IBM, like every other server maker with a new product, wants to show off the performance and scalability of its new Power7-based servers. But it doesn't want to make the comparisons too easy between the i and AIX platforms, or between the i versions of the boxes and other machines like X64 servers running Windows, as has been the case for many years. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: The Teahad Pilot, the Sycophant Senator, and IBM
by Hesh Wiener

Gerry Cullen watched the Piper Cherokee fly over his head and dive into a building where the Internal Revenue Service had offices. It was February 18, and Cullen was outside a Marie Callender's where he had gone for breakfast. A pilot as well as a pie lover, Cullen knew the Cherokee was going full throttle. What he couldn't tell is that the teahad pilot's deadly journey may have begun nearly 25 years earlier, when Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan helped change the Federal tax code in an effort to save IBM $60 million while squeezing freelance computer programmers for a comparable sum. READ MORE >