The OS/400 Cooperative
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It may not seem like it sometimes, but the end user companies, the IT professionals that work in them, the resellers and software partners, and the IBMers that comprise the OS/400 community have it pretty good, and they enjoy a certain amount of rapport and treat each other with a fair amount of respect. As an organization that serves the OS/400 community, but also participates in the Unix, Linux, Windows, and mainframe communities, IT Jungle probably has a more three-dimensional perspective than someone operating largely within the OS/400 community has. READ MORE >

EMC Licenses i5 Interfaces from IBM for Symmetrix Support
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The minute storage area networks, or SANs, took off as a technology, some sort of truce between IBM, which controls the OS/400 platform, and EMC, one of the four major suppliers of external disk arrays that are commonly at the heart of SANs, was probably inevitable. But it is difficult to get two stubborn competitors to cooperate, and the several hundred big iSeries shops that use EMC's Symmetrix arrays undoubtedly did a little arm twisting to get these two companies to work together. READ MORE >

Does the World Need Another ERP Suite? iCAP Thinks So
by Mary Lou Roberts

ERP software is not exactly a hot topic any more--or is it? The conventional wisdom is that the ERP market is a "mature" one, dominated by a well-defined list of vendors that have just about tapped out anyone and everyone who is remotely interested. ERP news is largely about new versions and enhancements and, in recent years, about acquisitions--hostile and otherwise--and the occasional major glitch or faux-pas in implementations. READ MORE >

As I See It: The Last Day
by Victor Rozek

He drove into the familiar lot, nosed his car toward the oleander bushes, and parked just as he had for the past 17 years. He liked the oleander. It held its bloom for a long time, much like he had. As was his habit, he parked away from the building and walked toward the entrance, in no hurry, enjoying the morning air. Living life indoors was, in an evolutionary sense, a very recent development, and some days it felt unnatural to him. As often happened, several people passed him in a rush, intent on getting to their desks and making a good impression on whoever might be watching. They probably missed the oleander, he thought. READ MORE >