IBM Pays for System i5 Video Viral Marketing
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Well, the AS/400, iSeries, and System i community have been asking IBM to more widely distribute some of the wacky video marketing campaigns that it comes up with--and which are usually only shown at user group meetings to the OS/400 and i5/OS faithful--and it looks like last week Big Blue finally listened. The company launched a "viral video" marketing campaign for the System i5--well, sort of--on Google's YouTube site and is using that company's AdSense automated advertising distribution system to place the four videos on Web sites. READ MORE >

System i Shops Plenty Annoyed About Missing WDSc Features
by Bruce Guetzkow and Timothy Prickett Morgan

To say that developers who work on the iSeries and System i5 platform were annoyed that IBM has removed two key features--Screen Designer and Application Diagram--from the Standard Edition of its new WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSc) Version 7.0 tool would be an understatement. Readers of The Four Hundred reacted with predictable and understandable frustration at last week's story by Bruce Guetzkow explaining that it was a bad idea to only include these features in the Advanced Edition of the product. READ MORE >

It Was Inevitable: IBM Jacks Maintenance Fees on Midrange Gear
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

With System i5 sales off for the past few quarters and many customers sitting tight on vintage AS/400 and iSeries gear that works just fine, thank you very much, it comes as no surprise that IBM increased maintenance prices on many auxiliary pieces of equipment relating to AS/400, iSeries, and System i5 boxes last week. The System i division has to make its numbers and it has to encourage customers to upgrade at the same time, and raising maintenance prices is one of the standard sticks in the computer racket when carrots are not working. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: The China Spin Drone
by Hesh Wiener

At 3 p.m. on February 27, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was falling in sympathy with a meltdown on the Shanghai exchange, seemed to drop off a cliff. What actually happened is that the computer behind the average was falling behind, so Dow switched to a backup system, which caught up very quickly, bringing the day to a miserable end. The Dow incident is an example of the Roadrunner Effect, where the Coyote runs past the edge of the cliff but doesn't fall until he looks down. A similar thing might be happening in the computer industry right now. READ MORE >