But Wait, There's More

• If you are trying to keep up with PTFs on OS/400 and related systems programs, check out the OS/400 PTF Guides, put together by our partner DLB Associates.
  
  

• September 20
• September 13
• September 6
• August 30
• August 23

• The attention devoted to offshoring IT services is heating up as more and more North American and Western European families lose primary bread-winners, while companies pad their bottom lines by taking advantage of cheap overseas labor. Last week, Gartner weighed in on the topic by explaining what it thinks companies need to do to compete against those that outsource. The increasing use of offshore resources in IT is part of a larger, historic economic trend of moving work from countries with high labor rates to regions with lower labor rates. What's different now is the lightning speed with which offshore services have become a mainstream reality that won't disappear once the Western economies recover. To win against this type of competition, Gartner says, businesses need to go directly at the inherent weaknesses in the offshoring paradigm. The best approach is to increase face-to-face interaction, to direct customers' attention to business value, rather than price, and to raise the bar on commodities such as innovation and quality. In addition, Gartner analysts are advising large IT services vendors (those with engagements exceeding $1 million) to establish an offshore partnering or acquisition strategy.
  
  
• The sometimes collaborative relationship between IT adversaries IBM and Microsoft was on display last week as the two companies patted each other on the back and described how their advanced Web services specifications are being developed so that even disparate computer systems can interoperate harmoniously. Both companies are interested in promoting Web services, a technology that still requires development before it gains the business-critical functionality that most decision-makers require. Cooperation between IBM and Microsoft in developing Web standards has been ongoing for more than a year. To demonstrate what this cooperative venture has yielded, the companies laid out a scenario using the disparate infrastructures of three hypothetical companies--an automotive dealer, a manufacturer, and a supplier--to conduct a business transaction using Microsoft and IBM software, a Linux operating system, and Web services specifications. Because of the advanced specifications, officials from both IBM and Microsoft noted that it's no longer necessary to use the same systems or to develop the applications at the same time. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said, "This is a set of standards that we hope to see implemented, not just in .NET and WebSphere but also in many other vendors' products." Both Gates and IBM's senior vice president in charge of software, Steve Mills, said that the next move is to seek vendor and customer feedback on issues such as security, reliable messaging, and transactions before submitting their work to a standards body.
  
  
• Warehouse management solution provider Manhattan Associates, in a move to provide customers with the capability for direct transmission of SKU-specific data via UCCnet, has integrated webMethods Item Synchronization. The product delivers SKU information, including package dimension and weight and number of pieces. It is information that, company officials say, many companies do not have the capability of synchronizing with retailers and other partners. The consumer packaged goods industry, in which companies are showing a growing interest in UCCnet, could find the Item Synchronization tool useful in dealing with suppliers and customers, as well as in integrating product data with enterprise back-end systems. Manhattan Associates and webMethods announced their partnership in May.
  
  
• The consumer packaged goods industry also heard from IBM last week, as Big Blue built a fire around an ongoing project and prospective service that takes advantage of radio frequency identification technology (RFID) for inventory control, product tracking, and expediting payments. The RFID venture is based on WebSphere Business Integration, running on WebSphere Application Server, DB2 Information Integrator, Tivoli Access Manager, and WebSphere Portal Server. IBM is working with Kimberly-Clark throughout the development of the RFID project, called AutoID. According to company officials at K-C, IBM is providing the consulting and implementation services, specialized software, and is helping K-C to develop an assessment of specific costs and benefits. Part of this work includes integrating a key K-C customer and an analysis of how AutoID impacts customers and, ultimately, the consumer. The project is taking a phased approach to RFID. Phase one includes consulting and development of the business case for RFID. Phase two is a 12-week pilot. In phase three, IBM provides the full roll-out of the system. IBM's RFID proponents say the retail industry could cut theft as well as reduce inventory levels by 25 percent, saving billions of dollars annually by tagging products and using computers to automatically trace those products from the warehouse through shipping and to store shelves.
  
  
• When we covered the latest round of iSeries announcements a few weeks ago, pricing and feature numbers were not yet available for the new hardware that IBM had announced. That information is now available. The new Integrated xSeries Server card with a 2 GHz Pentium 4 Xeon processor comes in three different models. Feature 4710 is supported on iSeries Model 820, 825, 830, 840, 970, and 890 servers; it costs $1,900. Feature 4810 is supported on Model 270, 800, and 810 servers, and also costs $1,900. Feature 9710 is the base IxS supported in Model 825, 870, and 890 servers and therefore has no fee associated with it. Feature 9710 can also be put into various iSeries expansion towers. IBM also announced a bunch of new PCI-X adapter cards. The PCI-X Fibre Channel disk controller is feature 2787. It is used to link to external Fibre Channel disk arrays, and costs $7,200. Feature 5703 is a new PCI-X SCSI disk controller with RAID-5 data protection that has 40 MB of cache. It can support up to 12 drives, but, in some machines, only 10 drives can be physically attached to it. The new RAID controller costs $3,000. The last new piece of hardware is feature 5704, a PCI-X Fibre Channel tape controller, which, as the name suggests, links tape subsystems with Fibre Channel connectivity to iSeries servers. It costs $3,800.
  
  

Sponsored By FAST400

What makes IBM different from Microsoft regarding Fast400?? What is Fast400? You are hearing a lot about Fast400 aren't you? But what is Fast400? Fast400 is a "tuning" product for the iSeries. Fast400 will allow an iSeries server to utilize the available CPW for interactive processing. IBM would have you believe that these interactive cards that cost thousands to millions of dollars, actually add value to your server. By buying Fast400, you do not ever need to buy another interactive card for your iSeries. For a free demonstration of Fast400, please visit www.fast400.net. Why Fast400? A few years ago Microsoft would not let other software companies build tools to work with the Windows operating system. Microsoft did all kinds of scurrilous things to stop other manufacturers' software from working on their platform. They would put code in the base operating system that prevented other companies code from working properly. IBM even had these issues with Operations Navigator. In the early days of Operations Navigator, the developers in Rochester had to scrap early versions because Microsoft did not want IBM leverage on what was proprietary to them. Netscape also had a few problems using the Windows operating system. The result Now we all know what happened to Microsoft. After spending tens of millions of our tax dollars in the trial, the US government told Microsoft that they were acting as a monopoly and what they did was not right or fair. The similarity IBM is doing exactly the same thing to Fast400 as Microsoft did. IBM has changed the operating system of the iSeries 400 to prevent Fast400 from working. In fact this has been done several times now, and each time the Fast400 developers produce a new fix to circumvent the IBM action. Why does IBM do this? because Fast400 takes money out of IBM's pocket. The potential for IBM to make billions from its user base, for delivering virtually no product is tantamount to corporate deception! Did IBM change the operating system when EMC introduced a low cost storage solution for the iSeries? The future The cat and mouse game between IBM and Fast400 is already a year old. Every time IBM changes the operating system to disable Fast400, the developers of Fast400 produce a new version within days to enable it again. Does Fast400 have a commercial agenda? Of course it does. Fast400 is in business to provide its clients with added benefits, which will maximise the interactive performance of iSeries 400 servers. And as we are a business, why shouldn't we charge a nominal fee for that service? A fee that our clients see as being fair and proper. After all, it's not Fast400 that is making enemies in the user base. As long as IBM wants to play "David and Goliath" we will continue to "out" the giant. Fast400 is not running, you can be assured!! For more information, please visit www.fast400.net.