A Radical Idea For IBM i Software Pricing
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about IBM's pricing for the IBM i operating system and database. With Big Blue having long since converged its Software Group and its Systems and Technology Group, you would think that the heat would be off in some ways to upgrade hardware and for the company to focus on getting customers current on software. But IBM likes to sell new systems as well as operating systems to customers, and it needs to make money as much as midrange shops don't like to spend it. READ MORE >

Soltis: We Could Learn From Japan
by Dan Burger

When Frank Soltis retired from IBM three years ago, he wasn't looking for a rocking chair, a fireplace, and a membership in the Nerdy Book of the Month Club. He's ridden in too many rodeos to hang up his saddle. The IBM i running on Power Systems is his arena. Soltis continues to travel around the world advocating for the platform and listening to what users and IBM business partners tell him about life on the Smarter Planet. READ MORE >

The Dreamy And Flashy Power 720 P05 Machine
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

It takes a whole village of smart people to raise a market because no single human being can calculate all of the angles. That's why there are laws against selective disclosure in the financial services market, and it is also one of the reasons why newsletters such as this one not only persist in the Internet Era, but have much broader impact than magazines used to in days of old. (But online publishing is, alas, a much more difficult and less profitable business than the magazine salad days of the 1980s and early 1990s.) In any event, it takes smart people like you to help each other out through The Four Hundred. READ MORE >

As I See It: Finding Balance In The Living Years
by Victor Rozek

The shadows are just beginning to crawl down the massive sandstone walls as we struggle into our dry suits and neoprene socks. A thick pair of river shoes and a sturdy walking stick complete our outfits. It's early morning and still cold as my wife and I prepare to embark on one of the legendary hikes in the National Park System, The Narrows at Zion. Zion is a long canyon carved over the centuries by the Virgin River. You enter the canyon from the south and it gradually constricts as you travel north until the walls close in and the river spills out a narrow cut between towering cliffs. Thus, the hike up-river is known as The Narrows. READ MORE >