Solaris Enterprise System: What Sun is Learning from the AS/400
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Maybe they should just start calling it "iSolaris" and get it over with? If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then IBM's Rochester iSeries division should indeed be flattered by some of the aggressive integration moves that rival Sun Microsystems has made to create an integrated system software stack based on its Solaris Unix variant. Sun isn't done yet, of course, and it remains to be seen how well or poorly its integration efforts will go. But I do think that the iSeries division should take a hard look at what Sun is doing, because it is a very real competitive threat to the iSeries. READ MORE >

Does Anybody Care About AIX on the iSeries?
by Dan Burger

AIX on the iSeries. It's been available for approximately one year, but what is its impact? The sales pitch from IBM is impressive: server consolidation, virtualization, infrastructure simplification, return on investment, total cost of ownership, support for multiple operating systems, expansion of the application universe, and, not to be downplayed, replacement of competitors' Unix boxes. Sounds like something for everyone or, at least, everyone who has Unix playing a role in the data center. So, what's the story? READ MORE >

iSeries ISVs React to SOA Standardization Initiative
by Mary Lou Roberts

On December 1, IBM announced it had joined with seven other major industry players--BEA Systems, IONA Technologies, Oracle, SAP, Siebel Systems, Sybase, and Zend Technologies--in an effort to create standardized specifications for services oriented architecture. SOA is the trendy new model for creating and implementing applications in heterogeneous environments, and SOA can be applied to both new applications and existing ones, breaking components of the applications into "business services" that can be unified across unlike platforms, regardless of development language. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Plenty of Newton
by Hesh Wiener

Sir Isaac Newton's Three Laws of Motion form the basis for many useful explanations of the physical world, and they also lend themselves nicely to metaphor when applied to political, social, and economic phenomena. So, while these laws are more than 300 years old, it's hardly surprising that the rekindling of the Browser Wars is providing fresh stimulus for the use of Newtonian metaphors. Unfortunately for anyone whose peace of mind depends on the predictability of trends in computing, the contest among Web browsers is bringing another law, a philosophical one, into play; namely, the Law of Unintended Consequences. READ MORE >

   But Wait, There's More

Look for the Four Hundred 2006 Special Report on December 14 . . . Gartner Survey Backs Server Consolidation Economics . . . Expensive SOX . . . Disk Storage Market Continues to Grow Like Crazy, Says IDC . . . IBM Touts Self-Healing Server Technologies . . . MKS Shows Progress in the Second Quarter . . . READ MORE >

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