Dan Burger
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i Witness Account: The Chief Architect’s View
April 15, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreSteve Will, the chief architect for the IBM i platform, is a hunter and gatherer of problems and solutions. He oversees the direction of the operating system, does the analysis, takes into account the integration, and supervises the implementation. Along with his team of big thinkers, Will uses customer resources as well as input from ISVs and business partners in the sales channel. A new release of the operating system is due in 2014, and Will touched on that in addition to talking about what has already been accomplished.
As Power Systems general manager Colin Parris noted in the opening
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Power Systems Marketing VP Sees Big Data Bulls Eye
April 15, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe new role of data in modern business is on the mind of IBM‘s vice president of marketing for Power Systems Zarina Stanford. Transactional data has lost none of its importance, but the need to analyze data quickly is where the business value is today and organizations are already capitalizing on analytics.
“Think about IBM i,” Stanford says. “The core is cognitive computing–sorting through information from DB2 and piecing it together.”
Big data means big value to this marketing executive and she sees IBM i on Power Systems as playing an important role in the industries where the demand
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Profound Framework Moves to Open Source
April 9, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreApplication development tool vendor Profound Logic has taken its user interface framework open source citing benefits such as increased capability for users to control their own software, improved integration between the IBM i and other platforms, no-cost opportunities for companies and developers to test the application modernization waters, and a route to development that avoids vendor lock-in. It’s Profound’s latest step in providing IBM midrange shops with an RPG tool that is more open and transparent.
Customer feedback has always been important in software development. Software companies develop products that are believed to be a good fit for a broad
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New Design Tool Coming from look
April 9, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe development of Web and mobile applications in IBM midrange shops is at the intersection of tools and talent. Companies with the talent are looking for the right tools. Companies that are short on talent, or have the talent but the talent doesn’t have the time, are looking for turnkey solutions. Either scenario is good for companies like looksoftware, which this week announced the soon-to-arrive version 10 release of its design and development environment known as newlook.
For companies with the talent to do this work in-house, newlook version 10 is worthy of reconnaissance. For those who want the
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IBM i Looks For ‘Social Security’ On Silver Anniversary
April 8, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM is planning a 25th anniversary celebration for IBM i and it begins now. It’s sort of a surprise party (at least the timing is a surprise), because the celebration is beginning almost 11 weeks in advance of the official anniversary date, which is June 21. Colin Parris popped the first cork April 7 during the opening session of the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition in Austin, Texas. However, it was Steve Will who strategically leaked the information last week in his blog.
It is fitting that the chief architect for the IBM i should open the door to this
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Avnet Describes IBM i Server Market Trends
April 1, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM i business is not the easiest thing to track these days. IBM and its business partners in the sales channel only want to talk in terms of Power Systems, so instead of having numbers to compare from one year to the next, we have estimations and best guesses based on the old finger-in-the-wind method. Some of our insights come from ISVs, IBM i shops, and consultants. Last week, I talked with several ranking members from Avnet, one of the master resellers in the IBM business channel.
Mark Martin is the vice president of marketing and business development for
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Scott Klement: Happy To Be On The Rebound
April 1, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreYou never know how good or how bad you’ll be at overcoming obstacles until you’re face to face with one of these hairy monsters with no place to run, no place to hide. You may already know the story of Scott Klement, one of the most robust RPG minds on the planet, an IBM Power Systems Champion, and a guy who is on a quest to overcome adversity. Back in early January, Klement encountered some unplanned downtime.
An illness left him tired and weak, but the unexpected swiftness of his deteriorating health that spiraled downward into something life threatening was
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COMMON And Academic Initiative Polish Partnership
April 1, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreGrowing your own talent and developing a motivated, skilled, and qualified workforce should be on the minds of managers of every organization from multi-national corporations to multi-employee small businesses. It is not uncommon for IT managers in IBM midrange shops to wonder out loud where the next generation of business computing whiz kids will come from. What is uncommon is finding IBM midrange shops growing their own talent through partnerships with local tech schools and community colleges. Instead of searching for talent in all the wrong places, there should be a greater emphasis on developing it locally.
Another step in
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Doin’ A Land Office Power7 Business Down In Texas
March 25, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreIt’s good to know when business is good. But you usually hear about it quicker (and louder and more often) when it’s not. Fortunately, when I want to know a little something about the IBM i business, there’s a guy in Texas I call. He always starts off by saying “my view of the world is pretty narrow.” And that’s a fact. But I always say something to the effect of “if the crumbs are good, chances are the cake is, too.”
A lot of you folks know the Texan I’m talking about. His name is Doug Fulmer and he
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IBM i Cloud Watch
March 25, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreWho’s to say that small to midsize companies are ready to move their IT infrastructure off premise to the cloud where it will be managed by people on someone else’s payroll? I can name one person who would. His name is Jay Johnson and he’s vice president of managed services for Sirius Computer Solutions, IBM‘s largest business partner. His managed services program is built around Power Systems and is primarily focused on the IBM i user base.
Last fall, Sirius rolled out a cloud computing program (part of, but separate from, managed services) because it thought the time