But Wait, There's More

Check Out the COMMON Keynotes and Those Hilarious iSeries Ads

Not everyone can go to COMMON, which is why we spent a lot of effort to transcribe the keynotes from the key IBM executives at the show and also obtained links to the iSeries commercials that Big Blue has created to promote the iSeries. We did not, however, do a very good job of pointing this out in last week's issue. So, just in case you missed it, here are the links you need to do our "virtual" COMMON:

Remarks By Mark Shearer, COMMON Spring 2005 (transcript)

Remarks By Peter Bingaman, COMMON Spring 2005 (transcript)

Remarks By Frank Soltis, COMMON Spring 2005 (transcript)

COMMON Spring 2005 iSeries Town Hall Meeting (transcript)

IBM played three videos, which you can download at ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/as400/web/iseriesmyseries/video/ and see for yourself. Play them in this order: Covered.mpeg, Automatic.mpeg, and People.mpeg.

Software Catalog Coming for the iSeries?

Having played around with bundling Bytware's StandGuard Anti-Virus software along with newly sold iSeries and i5 servers, IBM sources tell me that they are considering putting together an iSeries software catalog, possibly on a DVD or on the iSeries itself, to help third-party OS/400 software developers and IBM itself push more and different programs in the OS/400 customer base. IBM hasn't decided what should go into this catalog, so if you have any ideas, let us know and we will let IBM know what you think.

Oracle Grows Sales in Q1, But Profits Hit By PeopleSoft Charges

Having eaten PeopleSoft in December and prevailed in its desire to buy retail software specialist Retek after a brief bidding war with SAP, Oracle is delivering on its promise that the PeopleSoft acquisition would deliver growth for the company. For the fiscal third quarter that ended February 28, Oracle said software license sales were up 12 percent to $947 million (with Oracle properly merging PeopleSoft's financials into its own for both this year's and last year's fiscal third quarters). Support and update sales were up 18 percent to just under $1.4 billion and services sales were up 26 percent to $614 million. All told, sales were up 18 percent to $2.95 billion.

However, amortization of intangibles, acquisition related charges, and restructuring charges as Oracle laid off thousands of workers in the wake of the PeopleSoft acquisition took hundreds of millions of dollars off profits for the quarter, which dropped 15 percent to $540 million. Ignoring these charges, Oracle's net income would have been $814 million, up 25 percent.

looksoftware Offers 25 Percent Discount to Oracle World ERP Shops

Hoping to cash in on disgruntled World ERP customers who were not pleased with the PeopleSoft acquisition of J.D. Edwards and who are even less pleased with the acquisition of PeopleSoft by Oracle, Australian iSeries development toolmaker looksoftware is offering a 25 percent discount on its newlook application modernization software specifically to World ERP shops who agree to buy the software before June 30.

BMC Software Snaps Up OpenNetwork

Systems management software maker BMC Software last week acquired OpenNetwork, a vendor of single sign-on software that integrates Microsoft's Identity Management Server for the Windows platform with OS/400 security and sign-on software as well as for similar RACF environments on mainframes and sign-on products for Solaris and AIX.

BMC, which sells various PATROL system management utilities for the iSeries (including the capacity planning tools), paid $18 million in cash for OpenNetwork. The company's products will be merged into BMC's Identity Management business unit, which will also pick up 40 of OpenNetwork's employees under the deal.

IBM Tweaks Online Store Deals for the iSeries

If you are too busy or lazy to shop for your new i5 through the reseller channel, IBM would love nothing better than for you to go out to its online store and accept the token 5 percent discount that it is offering to customers who acquire an i5 box online directly from Big Blue.

While this 5 percent online discount isn't much in a world where customers can acquire a new eServer i5 box at anywhere from 15 to 25 percent off list price, it does help for those customers who are buying second-hand AS/400 7XX, iSeries 270, and iSeries 8XX servers from IBM Global Financing. This online discount can also be applied to upgrades from AS/400 7XX, iSeries 270, and iSeries 8XX servers to iSeries 8XX and i5 5XX servers. In April 2003, IBM offered this deal to try to get AS/400 shops to move up to the new iSeries boxes; with the announcement last week, IBM is adding i5 iron to the mix.

IBM Brings SUSE Linux Into Innovation Centers for Partners

IBM and Novell last week announced an expanded partnership arrangement bringing Novell's SUSE Linux operating systems and its related development tools to servers within IBM's various "innovation centers" to help independent software vendors code applications tuned specifically for SUSE Linux. The IBM-Novell deal follows a similar arrangement that Big Blue made with rival Linux distro Red Hat back in early December 2004.

The IBM-Novell arrangement, like the Red Hat deal, did not involve any money exchanging hands between the two, said Roy Aho, director for technical services and support for ISV and developer relations at IBM. Novell's SUSE Linux will be installed on X86, mainframe, and Power servers at nine centers spread around North America, Europe, and Asia. IBM has more than 25 big innovation centers around the world, plus a number of smaller satellite offices within different regions, all designed to allow ISV partners to come in and port their code to IBM hardware running different operating system platforms. IBM and Novell will be rolling out SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers at centers in: San Mateo, California; Waltham, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Hursley, England; Paris, France; Stuttgart, Germany; Bangalore, India; Shanghai, China; and Sydney, Australia. The SUSE products can be installed on all of IBM's eServer platforms. Partners also get help from IBM and Novell Linux server experts as they do their application ports. Novell is also offering its Linux certification process through the centers. ISVs also get their own copies of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 to play with as part of the deal, which is worth a few grand.