But Wait, There's More

Attention Members of the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers

If are a manager or programmer who works in the IBM midrange, the chances are better than even that you are a member of the Baby Boom generation or its predecessor, the Silent Generation. (I really dislike that latter term as much as I dislike Generation X, but I didn't coin either.) If you are 50 years or older, you fit into one of these two generations. And a friend of mine who works for Time magazine needs your help and wants to help you.

Francine Russo--who just married one of my best friends, who has been a long-time contributor to Time, and who is also a theater critic for the Village Voice here in the Big Apple--is starting a column called Ask Francine for Time. If you want to vent about the lifestyle choices and relationship conundrums you are facing as a member of these two generations, drop her a line. Francine has led an interesting life, and like her bio says, she approaches life with wit and grace. The bio forgot to mention charm and brains, but you can trust me on that one.

More Than 80 V5R3 Sessions At COMMON in San Antonio

There will 82 sessions covering V5R3-related enhancements during the upcoming COMMON conference and expo, in San Antonio, Texas. Over five days, attendees will hear presentations from Rochester IBMers and iSeries experts, covering everything from the new operating system security and journaling features, to new logical partitioning (LPAR) and independent auxiliary storage pool (iASP) features in OS/400 V5R3. For those who can't make it to the Lone Star State, IBM will be pushing OS/400 V5R3 data out over the Web, with an iSeries Nation "citizen's chat" Webinar titled "Enhancements in V5R3 and other iSeries news" on May 13. Leading that Webinar will be Al Zollar, iSeries general manager; Frank Soltis, chief scientist for the iSeries; and Tim Alpers, a product development team leader.

iSeries Advocate Anne Lucas Says Goodbye to IBM (but Not to the iSeries)

Anne Lucas, who won respect from iSeries users as an advocate of the OS/400 platform and of customers, is leaving IBM. Lucas announced last week that she is leaving IBM to work at Genisys Group, an IT consultancy and IBM business partner based in Nashville, Tennessee. "It is with mixed emotions that I leave IBM and the iSeries organization," the former iSeries retention program manager wrote in a widely distributed e-mail. "I will continue working to ensure iSeries customers solve their business needs with the best in products, solutions, and services." Lucas will be based in the Birmingham branch of Genisys Group, which provides sales and service for the iSeries, among other platforms. Lucas is the second visible IBM spokesperson to leave the iSeries organization recently. As we reported last week, Stephanie Joy, product marketing director for the iSeries line, has moved to a new job within IBM's sales and distribution organization.

El Camino Resources Gets Back in the IT Game

El Camino Resources, a Woodland Hills, California, company that used to be one of the largest resellers and lessors of IBM midrange and mainframe equipment, but which hit a rough patch in late 2000 and early 2001 that forced the company to sell off a lot of its assets and businesses, has reemerged and is ready to start doing IT financing again.

We recently spoke with David Harmon, president of the company and one of its founders from the 1970s, who said that he has toughed it out for the past three years and, thanks to a lot of hard work, El Camino has settled all its financial obligations and has negotiated for a $20 million credit line with a number of banks in Mexico to do leasing and other partnering operations. Harmon said that the reborn El Camino has financed about $20 million in capital equipment in 2003, some of it being IT equipment and a lot of it being other stuff like car fleets. He says that the Mexican operation will probably finance in excess of $50 million in assets this year, and, more significantly for the IT market, that it will begin to write leases in the United States again. The company is currently negotiating with banking and investor firms and expects to announce deals in the near future.

At its peak, El Camino had about $1.3 billion in assets and about 1,300 employees. Today, it has approximately 50 employees. About 20 of those employees provide break-fix and other support services for around 75 OS/400 and mainframe accounts in the Southern California region. The support services business, which kept chugging along during El Camino's downturn, as well as during the downturn in the economy, brings in approximately $4 million a year for El Camino. Harmon is not exactly sure how El Camino will partner or whether it will become an iSeries or zSeries reseller, but he expects to do IT financing, and he also is considering building up expertise in Linux, which is a fast-growing market.

Create!form Signs New Resellers in Sweden and South Africa

Create!form International, a developer of electronic document management software for iSeries and other platforms, has signed new resellers in Sweden and South Africa. As "gold partners," Centerfield Software, based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and SYSteam, based in Huskvarna, Sweden, are now authorized to resell, support, and provide professional services for Create!form's document output management products in their respective markets in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa). Both Centerfield Software and SYSteam have established PeopleSoft customer bases. Create!form was one of the leading providers of document management software to J.D. Edwards ERP users. Last year, J.D. Edwards was bought by PeopleSoft, and Create!form was bought by Bottomline Technologies, which operates Create!form as a subsidiary.

IDC Says Positive Business Outlook Will Lead to Increased IT Spending in 2004

While we're in little danger of experiencing the type of euphoric business growth that manifested during the go-go days of the late 1990s and in early 2000, it does appear that the economic footings of many companies are improving, and business spending is pulling solidly out of the slump of the last three years. The latest indicator comes from IDC, which recently conducted a survey of 1,341 North American decision-makers. The survey's results show a 15 percent jump in the number of decision-makers reporting their business prospects as "positive" or "very positive," IDC says, while about 43 percent of respondents said their organizations intend to boost their total IT budget in 2004, a significant improvement over the 31 percent level recorded in 2003. IDC says the biggest budget increases are being seen in the banking industry, as well as in the business and legal services industry. Furthermore, the group found that companies in the banking, telecommunications, and resources industries are shifting IT budget dollars from internal to external spending for 2004, which indicates that outsourcing is more prevalent in these industries than in other verticals.

Four More Software Vendors Join IBM's ISV Advantage

Four independent software vendors last week joined IBM's ISV Advantage program, which is celebrating its first anniversary this month. InSystems is a Toronto, Canada, company that specializes in developing Windows-based document and compliance automation software for insurance and financial services. Another new ISV Advantage convert is Relavis, a New York City developer of IBM Domino-based CRM applications. DST also joined ISV Advantage last week. The Southern California company develops an OS/400-based warehouse management and supply chain package, called DSTWare. Viewlocity also has also joined the ISV Advantage program. Viewlocity, based in Atlanta, develops supply chain software that runs on a variety of operating systems, including OS/400, Unix, and Windows. The company was formed a year and a half ago by the merger of Viewlocity, SynQuest, and Tilion. The resulting publicly traded company was known as SynQuest until it changed its name back to Viewlocity, in January 2003. In January, the company was purchased by a private party. IBM's sales and marketing organizations will work with these ISVs to target their specific verticals.

Get the Latest OS/400 PTF Guide

Our partner DLB Associates has been keeping track of IBM's PTF updates to OS/400 and its related programs. Here are the latest OS/400 PTF Guides:

March 20

March 27

April 3

April 10

April 17