IBM Announces New System i5 Collaboration Edition
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Slowly but surely, I think that IBM is coming around to the idea that if it wants to win the business of small businesses, it has to make its System i5 machines less expensive. I also think that IBM wants its established Notes/Domino groupware and emerging Workplace collaboration software to drive more sales of System i5 boxes. And that is why Big Blue has created the System i5 Collaboration Edition, which is a less-expensive i5 box aimed at supporting various Lotus-branded software. READ MORE >

IBM Delivers iSCSI Connection, Pushes Blades to OS/400 Shops
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As it promised it would last fall, IBM has delivered an iSCSI link into the System i5 server line that will replace the special Integrated xSeries Adapter cards that it has used for a number of years to allow external xSeries X86 servers to plug into disk arrays under the skins of the iSeries and System i5 servers, using them as their primary storage. In addition to the iSCSI links, IBM announced a push to get its BladeCenter blade servers into i5 shops and various other new I/O adapter cards. READ MORE >

System i5 Security: What's New, and What the Future Holds
by Mary Lou Roberts

For lots of reasons, the push for IT to implement better and better system and data security continues to be at or at least near the top of the to-do list for most IT shops. While certain industries--financial services, healthcare, and government, for example--have been grappling with tightening up security for years, virtually all IT organizations today, regardless of size or industry, are being forced to take a closer look at just how secure their systems and data really are. READ MORE >

As I See It: Betrayal
by Victor Rozek

Corporations find it hard to think of China as being populated by actual human beings. China is not viewed as a nation, or a people, or even a system of governance. Through corporate eyes, China is, first and foremost, an enormous market that is therefore populated by needs. Being a supplier of "needs" is problematic to the degree that it focuses on the object of the need and ignores the humanity of the needy. When commerce abandons conscience, market share trumps social impact, profits take precedence over scruples, then rules are bent and statutes are circumvented. The more repressive and unpredictable the regime, the greater the fear of losing access to the market and the higher the urgency to protect it by ingratiating yourself to the authorities. READ MORE >