But Wait, There's More

The eServer p5 "Squadron" Servers Take Flight, Too

As expected, IBM completed the first phase of the Power5 "Squadron" server rollout last week, as it not only boosted the eServer i5 Model 570 machine to 16-way processing but also rolled out the entry and midrange eServer p5 Unix and Linux servers. You can get our full coverage of the p5 announcements in The Unix Guardian.

IBS Acquires JGI's Supply Chain Software Unit

Swedish midrange application software supplier IBS announced that it has acquired the supply chain management software unit of JGI. JGI was founded in 1982 as a software and consulting company that specializes in supply chain and human resources/payroll solutions. JGI sold its supply chain practice, which had 35 employees working in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, and Buffalo, New York, to IBS, which is a $300 million supplier of software for manufacturers and distributors. That practice had expertise not only with software from IBS but also with PeopleSoft's EnterpriseOne and SSA Global's BPCS. IBS did not disclose financial terms of the deal and did not acquire the HR/payroll part of JGI, which will continue operating under the Janus Group name.

StorageTek's New SL8500 Library Supports up to 300,000 Tape Cartridges

StorageTek has launched a new OS/400-compatible automated tape library, the Streamline SL8500. The massively scalable SL8500 starts with 64 drives and can be equipped with up to 2,048 drives, with any mixture of StorageTeks' T9840 or T9940 drives, as well as LTO and SDLT tape drives. Robotics can handle between 1,448 and 300,000 cartridges, packed into an "ultra-dense footprint," the Louisville, Colorado, company says. ("Follow the leader, if you can," StorageTek taunts, and it's right: none of its competitors comes close to supporting a quarter of a million tapes. Cartridge capacities for IBM's 3494 and 3584 libraries, which support its 3590 Magstar and LTO drives respectively, top out at 6,240 cartridge slots.) Connectivity on the SL8500 is handled through fast Fibre Channel links, or FICON and ESCON mainframe connectivity, for 9840 and 9940 drives. The software supports OS/400 clients through StorageTek's host software, either ACSLS or HSC with LibStation, says Joe Fuentes, a StorageTek spokesperson. In other news, StorageTek announced that it has formed an OEM agreement with Sun Microsystems that allows Sun to sell the SL8500 library for its Unix servers.

Open Source Proponent JBoss Partners with Seagull

Application modernization expert Seagull and JBoss, developer of the popular open source application server, are teaming up to help companies transform legacy programs into composite applications, built on a service-oriented architecture, it was announced last week. As part of the agreement, LegaSuite, Seagull's application modernization software, will be integrated with the JBoss Application Server, enabling companies to create new Web-based front-ends for older OS/400, mainframe, Unix, and Windows applications, and to serve them from the JBoss application server. The agreement also calls for JBoss to certify LegaSuite's integration points and authorizes Seagull to resell the JBoss Application Server. "JBoss is the rising star in the application server market,” says Don Addington, Seagull's chief executive and president. The partnership rounds out Seagull's application server support and builds on LegaSuite's support for other popular Java-based application servers, including IBM's WebSphere and BEA Systems' WebLogic, as well as Microsoft's .NET infrastructure. Testing of the integration is currently underway, and Seagull expects to begin shipping JBoss software and providing JBoss support services in late summer.

And the Winner Is: COMMON Announces Speaker Excellence Awards

Nations of the world will gather on August 13 in Athens, birthplace of the Olympics, to compete in athletics and to make their country proud by bringing home gold, silver, and bronze medals. COMMON, the largest iSeries user group, has a similar program in place to honor those who demonstrate excellence, not in track or field, but in communicating ideas to conference attendees. The organization announced its "speaker excellence" awards last week for the May conference in San Antonio, and you might recognize some of the names. Randall Munson, Trevor Perry, and Robert Tipton walked away with gold and silver medals, while Al Barsa, Frank Soltis, and Paul Tuohy brought home the silver. Winners of bronze medals included Michael Cain, Richard Dolewski, Susan Gantner, Laura Knapp, Wayne Madden, Skip Marchesani, Kent Milligan, Jim Oberholtzer, Jon Paris, Becky Schmieding, Larry Youngren, Barsa, Perry, and Tuohy. These tough competitors will receive their awards at the next COMMON conference, to be held October 17 through 21 in Toronto, Ontario.

IBM to Acquire J2EE Business Intelligence Developer Alphablox

IBM last week announced its intention to acquire Alphablox, a privately held developer of business intelligence software based in Mountain View, California. Alphablox offers a series of reusable components (called "blox") designed to be embedded into existing applications, thereby making it easier to provide business analysis without hiring expensive programmers. In addition to the six blox already created by Alphablox, the company's offerings include a J2EE-based development framework, which enables non-programmers to assemble the analytic applications that are then deployed on standard Java Web application servers. IBM currently offers DB2 Alphablox for Unix and Windows, and says it plans to further integrate the technology with DB2 Data Warehouse, WebSphere Business Integration Monitor, the Rational toolset, and WebSphere Portal and IBM Workplace applications. Whether the Alphablox technology will be made available to DB2/400 is not known; IBM had not responded at press time. Financial details of the transaction were not announced, and the acquisition is expected to close later this month.

IDC: Software Piracy Cost Developers $29 Billion in 2003

More than a third of the PC software in use around the world in 2003 was pirated, according to a new survey conducted by IDC for the Business Software Alliance. The survey found that 36 percent of software installed was an illegally made copy, costing developers $29 billion. While $80 billion in software was installed on computers worldwide last year, only $51 billion was legally purchased, the IDC found.

The IDC broke its findings down by geography, and, not surprisingly, the rate of software piracy was higher in developing markets. Leading the way for software pirates was Eastern Europe, where 71 percent of all PC software was pirated. Latin America and the Middle East and Africa followed, with 63 percent and 56 percent piracy rates respectively. Fifty-three percent of all software installed in Asia-Pacific last year was pirated, and only 36 percent Western Europe's software were illegal copies, although Western Europe cost developers the most, with a $9.6 billion loss due to piracy. If you live in North America, you can feel good knowing that only 23 percent of software here is pirated, and it cost developers only $7.2 billion, $300 million less than piracy cost developers in the Asia-Pacific region. IDC based its findings on 5,600 interviews in 15 countries.