Windows/400: Windows On Power Systems, Take Five
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

A moment of indignation on behalf of midrange shops that are up to their necks in both IBM i and Windows: Why on earth does the ARM architecture get a version of Windows ahead of the Power server platform? What's more important: Hundreds of thousands of customers who spend billions of dollars on expensive systems, or tens of millions of consumers who spend billions of dollars on smartphones and tablets that have hardly any profit margin? Why is the latter billion better than the former, BillG? READ MORE >

IBM Refocuses Its Application Reputation
by Dan Burger

The question is often asked, What is IBM doing for the small to midsize businesses that run on the IBM i platform? From a numbers standpoint, this is the largest segment of customers Big Blue can claim under a single brand, with 95 percent of the IBM i installed base being SMBs. IBM built the System/3X and AS/400 business over three decades, and it did so with application software. It has been in maintenance mode for more than a decade, and now the company has seen that to keep and expand this business, it needs application software. READ MORE >

European Power Deal Tweaked, Zero Percent Financing Down Under
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The Power Systems business is humming along relative to other Unix and proprietary platforms, but success for IBM is measured relative to itself, quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year and at the bottom line. And thus Big Blue has doubled down on a Power Systems rebated deal designed to get European companies off old iron and onto new, as well as offering financing deals across its server and storage line in Australia and New Zealand to attract some business. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Goodbye Kitty
by Hesh Wiener

You may remember the movie Apotheker Now, or perhaps the novel on which it was based, Bartz of Darkness. The story, as you undoubtedly recall, concerns Fulton J. Wintel, sent into the wilderness by the greedy tyrant Leopold 2.0 to bring back whacko Kemeny Kurtz. Wintel finds Kurtz, who soon expires, muttering, The oracle, the oracle. The tale portrays the underside of Silicon Valley during the Doofus Era, when companies dexterously developing and exploiting new technologies overwhelmed those that slipped even once, or looked like they might have. READ MORE >