IBM i Competes with AIX/Oracle on Power 720s, Gets Beat on 750s
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Despite all the changes in the Power Systems lineup with the Power7 processors this year and a slew of entry and midrange servers, the most likely servers that IBM i shops are likely to buy, for a whole cornucopia of different colored reasons, are the Power 720 or 750 with a modest number of relatively low-speed processors. The good news for Power 720 shops is that the i 7.1 software stack, which includes an integrated DB2 database, is absolutely competitive with combination of IBM's AIX Unix variant and the most appropriate 11g relational database from Oracle. READ MORE >

iManifest Powers On in Japan
by Kimitaki Usui

People are curious about the iManifest Japan effort, and so I would like to give you an update. After the advertisement titled IBM i Manifest in the Nihon Keizai Shinbun published on January 13, 2009, which strongly promoted IBM i, the Japanese iManifest community decided to gear up to take iManifest to the next level. First, we set up an advisory board consisting of 15 members from 15 companies (which has grown to 21 members from 21 companies), and formed five task forces. READ MORE >

Power Systems Not Quite Rebounding Yet in Q3
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The hoped-for big bounce in Power Systems sales is going to have to wait until the fourth quarter, it looks like. With IBM only shipping high-end Power 795 and entry Power 710, 720, 730, and 740 systems for two weeks in the third quarter, these new machines, which were announced in the middle of August, probably did more damage to the quarter than they helped in terms of Power7-based server sales. Now, all eyes are turned to the fourth quarter, where IBM will have a complete Power7 systems lineup and perhaps the normal server bump to help it post some good numbers. READ MORE >

As I See It: My Name is Bond--Jane Bond
by Victor Rozek

As far as women are concerned, Guys. . . are the new ball and chain. That's one of the doleful conclusions reached by Hanna Rosin in her recent article in The Atlantic called The End of Men. To the typical insecure male, that title would be dismissed as excessively provocative. But as Ms. Rosin soberly documents--albeit with just a little dash of feminist glee--men appear to have lost their economic, educational, and biological edge and are teetering somewhere between pathetic and irrelevant. Ouch! READ MORE >