I/O, Memory Boosted On Entry, Enterprise Power Systems
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

I can sum up IBM's entry Power Systems announcements on October 12, which are not being formally announced until sometime this week, in a way that will flash you back to either your own or your parents' childhood. This is the refrain of the theme song from The Power Systems Show: They're servers, nearly identical servers: They look alike, they cost alike, at times they even compute alike--you can lose your mind when computers are two of a kind. READ MORE >

IBM i 7.1 Tweaked To Be More ISV Friendly
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

As part of the October 12 Power Systems announcements, the IBM i 7.1 operating system-database combo was tweaked with Technology Refresh 3, the second update this year and the third such refresh since IBM moved toward a regular update cycle that was more akin to (but still distinct from) the way AIX gets updated. The Technology Refresh focuses on new functions and I/O support that is meant to be installed with the current operating system release and be less disruptive. READ MORE >

That Perplexing Power7+ Processor
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Like you, I only jump to the wrong conclusion when I come to a cliff and generally only if I believe I am going to make it to the other side. There was a lot of circumstantial and graphical evidence that IBM was going to launch a Power7+ kicker to the current Power7 processor, and as we all found out last week, that didn't happen. As we report elsewhere in this issue, IBM put out new systems with denser memory and new PCI-Express I/O peripheral slots, but with the same or essentially the same Power7 processor features. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Preoccupy Wall Street
by Hesh Wiener

IBM has almost always been a darling of Wall Street. It is Big Blue, the bluest of the blue chips. This year IBM shares have risen more than any of the other 29 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average; they currently sell for about 13 times earnings. Hewlett-Packard is also a DJII component. It has significantly higher revenue than IBM. For the past five years it has grown faster, too. It sells a larger number of servers than Big Blue. But its name is mud on Wall Street. HP's price/earnings ratio is half that of IBM. How come? READ MORE >