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But Wait, There's More . . .
The CEO of IDION Technology Holdings slammed
DataMirror's hostile takeover bid again last week,
saying DataMirror's second offering was still "ridiculously cheap." The response came a week after the
Canadian software company upped its first offer to buy a majority stake in South Africa-based IDION for
about 6 to 11 cents per share. (That's the value of the offer in U.S. dollars.) While DataMirror's second
offer was almost double its first, the amount of money it was putting up was about the same, because it
sought fewer numbers of shares. "Like the first offer, this grossly undervalues our company," said Nicolaas
Vlok, CEO of both IDION and its American subsidiary, high availability software vendor Vision Solutions. Vlok also said he has received written
statements of commitment from shareholders holding more than 55 percent of the company's stock
rejecting the latest offer from DataMirror, which itself owns 16.7 percent of IDION's outstanding shares. In
its response to DataMirror, Vision Solutions included the opinion of its counsel, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Corporate Finance, which stated the revised offer "is significantly less than the true value of IDION." "We
are in any case not looking for a buyer," Vlok said, "and hope that this will be the end of the matter."
Owners of Infinium Software's stock were
pleasantly surprised last week. On Monday, the vendor of OS/400 ERP software announced its second
quarter financial results. The company reported quarterly software license fee revenue of $2.9 million, a 3
percent decline from the second quarter a year ago, but a 34 percent improvement over the previous
quarter. Additionally, the company posted earnings of 25 cents per share, compared with 21 cents per share
three months earlier. The slight uptick in cash flow and profitability was enough to send investors into a
tizzy. On Tuesday, Infinium's stock shot up from about $5 per share to about $7.50 per share, a new 52-
week high for the stock, which Nasdaq almost delisted earlier this year. Its stock has since settled down and
was trading for $6.60 per share by mid-day on Friday.
Gauss Interprise and Perficient last week announced they've formed a strategic
relationship to help sell content management solutions. According to the companies, Perficient, an Austin,
Texas, company that provides e-business services and consulting, specifically using WebSphere as its
basis, will now build content management solutions that also use Gauss's products. Gauss, of Irvine,
California, has developed a large-scale content management system that uses iSeries, pSeries, DB2, and
WebSphere technology from IBM.
Peregrine Systems and IBM last week announced a strategic relationship to develop
infrastructure resource management, or IRM, solutions for customers in the public sector,
telecommunications and financial services industries. As part of the agreement, Peregrine will make sure
that its AssetCenter, ServiceCenter, and Get-It suite of applications can be run on IBM's hardware and
software, including pSeries, xSeries, and zSeries servers and the DB2 database (sorry, no iSeries or
DB2/400). AssetCenter helps companies understand where their assets lie and how they're being used; it
currently runs only on Windows servers and is able to use the database management systems from Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft. ServiceCenter helps companies and employees
understand their IT needs so they can make better purchasing decisions; it already runs on Windows and
Unix platforms and supports all major database systems, including DB2. Get-IT is a collection of three
modules that give employees the capability to search and find company-related information. The server-
based Get-Resources component currently runs on Microsoft operating systems and uses database systems
from Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft; the Get-Answers and Get-Service client components use the
combination of Windows operating systems and Internet Explorer Web browsers. In exchange for
supporting IBM operating systems and middleware, Peregrine will gain access to IBM PartnerWorld
marketing services and sales leads.
What's all the grumbling these days about Big Blue's strong-arm business tactics? Apparently, the
iSeries disk providers and consultants who must compete with IBM's MidMarket Server and Global Services groups haven't heard the
latest about IBM's illustrious corporate citizenship. Last week--and we are not making this up--Business Ethics magazine voted IBM the
top corporate citizen of the year for 2002. OK, so the category for business partner relations wasn't
weighted very heavily this year. OK, so it wasn't even one of the categories the magazine measures with its
Ethics Corporate Social Responsibility Report, which rates the United States' top 650 public companies
each year on how they interact with employees, customers, the community, stockholders, the environment,
and overseas stakeholders. The magazine says IBM racked up the most points for its policies and programs
for minorities and women.
Two companies that supply the banking industry with OS/400 software announced the formation of a
multi-year, international reseller agreement last week. SEDONA will provide its CRM package for small-to-midsize
financial institutions, called Intarsia, to Fiserv InformEnt, a subsidiary of Fiserv, which will sell the software under its own private label. Fiserv
InformEnt plans to target financial institutions with less than $1 billion in assets for the new software.
Over the next few weeks, IBM will present its iSeries Solutions Express
road show, which showcases IBM and business partner solutions for e-business (WebSphere and Domino)
and server consolidation (Logical Partitioning, Linux, and Windows), as well as an update on IBM's plans
for 2002. The show is interesting, but, if you're not able to attend, you can easily review IBM's road show
presentations on its Web site, to educate your staff on what the iSeries can do.
At the Chicago show, attended by our intrepid "Admin Alert" columnist, Joe Hertvik, earlier this month,
IBM gave out some pretty decent information on what the iSeries can do in these areas (the lunch was
pretty good, too, and there were door prizes raffled off from both IBM and its business partners). Big Blue
also dropped more than a few hints about what is--and what isn't--coming in OS/400 V5R2 (and it should
be even more explicit in the next round of shows since they will probably be held after the V5R2
announcement). Joe found the presenters were more than willing to answer any tough questions about
information that has been floating around in the press, including items from several stories published in
The Four Hundred.
If you're not able to attend one of the presentations, you can still take advantage of the seminar by checking
out IBM's slides for the show, on the iSeries Solutions Express
Web site. (Note: You will need a PDF viewer to look at the presentations; look for the link to "presentation
downloads.") These slides are not password protected, and they are excellent for broadening your
knowledge of current OS/400 capabilities, as well as for informing other people about what OS/400 can do.
You might even be able to springboard off of IBM's information to educate upper management about what
the iSeries can do and where it might fit into your company's long-term strategic vision.
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