IBM Tweaks i5 515 and 525 User-Based Prices
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

After getting lots of feedback from customers, resellers, and independent software developers who have been reacting to the announcement of the user-priced System i5 515 and 525 Power5+ servers, IBM has made some modifications to the way software is priced on the boxes. The change in pricing gives the i5 515 and 525 servers a better fit into the way certain kinds of customers make use of the box, and it also shows that IBM wants to react fast to any feedback from customers to get the pricing right. READ MORE >

An i5 Platform: Q&A with Marlin Equity's Top Brass
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Two weeks ago, Marlin Equity Partners, a relative newcomer in the private equity business that was founded by people with more than a passing familiarity with the i5/OS and OS/400 ecosystem, acquired Aldon, one of the big providers of application lifecycle development tools in the System i market. The top brass at Marlin Equity, which has big plans for the i5 market, took some time out of their schedules to chat about those plans and to explain why they are entering the market as an investment platform for the future. READ MORE >

The Gulf Between Buyers and Sellers Widens in IT, Says IDC
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The analysts at IDC spend a lot of time talking to IT suppliers to understand their strategies and products, and they spend a similarly large amount of time talking to IT managers and C-level executives to try to understand the challenges they face in their data centers. A new report put out by IDC this week focuses on the interface between the two--where IT buyer meets IT seller. READ MORE >

As I See It: Operating on Overload
by Victor Rozek

If the name Conrad Gesner is unfamiliar, it's probably because you're either not a librarian or weren't around in the 16th century when Gesner walked the earth. Born in Switzerland, Gesner was a naturalist and a scholar, but he is known to librarians as the creator of the bibliography. And what an ambitious accomplishment it was! Known as the Bibliotheca universalis, it was written in three languages--Greek, Latin, and Hebrew--and it listed all of the writers who had ever lived and the titles of all their works. READ MORE >