System i Announcement Wrap Up
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

I don't know about you, but I got the distinct impression that the split up of the System i division, the launching of the Power6-based System i 570, and the preview of the upcoming i5/OS V6R1 operating system was a bit hurried two weeks ago. Which is a bit odd for a set of announcements that I would have said were better timed for late 2006, not spread out from the summer of 2007 through maybe spring 2008. You can never be sure what is going on inside Big Blue, but I would guess that the timing of yet another quarter of System i revenue declines was the trigger for the changes we saw and for the jumping of the gun on the Power6 server announcement. READ MORE >

IBM Upgrades System i Storage with SAS Drives
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Ask and ye shall receive--well, at least some of what ye asked for, anyway. Only a month ago, I was ranting on behalf of the System i base that Serial Attached SCSI disk drives had gone mainstream and were offering other server customers performance and benefits that Ultra320 SCSI disks do not offer, including 2.5-inch form factors that consume a lot less energy. IBM may not be the first out the door with new disk technology, as it used to be in days gone by, but with July's System i announcements, the company is at least starting to play catch up. READ MORE >

Mainframe Vendor BluePhoenix Ready to Purchase ASNA
by Dan Burger

ASNA, one of the oldest of the System i independent software vendors, is very close to being purchased by BluePhoenix Solutions, a software and services vendor with a history in the mainframe market. The letter of intent covering the merger of the two companies was announced August 1 in a press release posted on the BluePhoenix Website, a day after the publicly held company reported its financial results for the second quarter. Officials at ASNA are not commenting on the pending deal until it has been finalized, which is expected to occur by August 15. READ MORE >

As I See It: Policeware
by Victor Rozek

Is it just me or is the Federal Bureau of Investigation running out of clever names for its clever software? I mean, first we had Carnivore, which conjures up something toothy and predatory; then we had Magic Lantern, which evokes mystical, Harry Potteresque powers; and now we have CIPAV, which sounds like, well, like it was written by IBM. READ MORE >