Dan Burger
-
SQL Server Not Best Ingredient In IBM i BI Pie
February 18, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhat does business intelligence and analytics mean to you? There are many answers to that single question, but information delivery is often the common denominator. Most people who think of BI think of dashboards. The capability to produce Web-based reports is likely to be the guiding light for most BI projects in the majority of IBM midrange shops where the dissemination of useful data, primarily residing in the DB2 for i database, is both inefficient and inconvenient. How do you fix that?
It is not with a green-screen query tool designed for last century’s business objectives, that is for sure.
-
More Record-Breaking Results For Magic Software
February 18, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe year 2012 was a good one. Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking skydive from 24 miles above the planet in 2012 got more attention, but Magic Software Enterprises broke records, too, admittedly with less fanfare. Perhaps CEO Guy Bernstein should take up skydiving. Then again, he is not doing a bad job increasing revenue at the company that specializes in application development and business integration tools for the IBM midrange as well as several other important markets.
Revenue gains, like the 12 percent increase that Magic scored last year, would be cause for celebration in most companies. Converted to cash money, that’s
-
Jack Henry’s Fiscal Winning Streak Continues
February 11, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreJack Henry & Associates, the banking software and payment processing services provider that is a well-known vendor in the IBM midrange, has tacked on healthy increases in revenue for its fiscal second quarter of 2013. The financial report, released last week, showed a revenue spurt of 9 percent compared to the first fiscal quarter of 2012. Net income was bumped up 5 percent in the same year-to-year comparison.
For the first six months of the company’s fiscal 2013, revenue increase maintains that 9 clip and net income increases are on an 11 percent gain. Closely shadowing Jack Henry’s established
-
Wisconsin Tech Conference A Smart Move
February 11, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreThere is a strong win-win for the attendees of the annual technical conference hosted by the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professionals Association and the companies that send IT staff to the two-day educational conference. You could call it leading IT in leaner times, or leveraging human resources, or better investing in IT as a company asset. There’s a payoff for smart employees and smart companies.
WMCPA has chosen a session agenda made up of lectures and labs and keynote addresses that covers topics that the majority of IBM i shops want and need to hear about with a lineup of speakers
-
IBM’s Social Media Addiction Intensifies
February 4, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhen it comes to eating its own dog food, IBM can’t get enough of social media. Everyone at the Big Blue enterprise is expected to chow down. In turning social media into social business, Big Blue figures it is best to lead by example. Last week, IBM’s social technology soapbox Connect 2013, the conference formerly known as Lotusphere, was talking with their mouths full. Naturally, this was a good time to announce new software and cloud-based services. Warning: Buzz shields required beyond this point.
The statistical bombardment is the first thing that hits you.
IBM claims 61 percent of the
-
Notes/Domino Social Edition 9 To Arrive In March
February 4, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreNotes/Domino Social Edition 9 has been talked about since Lotusphere 2012. There was a public beta version released in November last year. Its development cost is rumored to be as much as $100 million while spanning 18 to 24 months, depending on who’s spreading the rumors. Now IBM is committing to a March release date for the software, which is being billed as the biggest Notes/Domino release in years. And, being modern and all, it has the “Social Edition” tag on it.
There’s no bigger burden, we’ve repeatedly seen, than the burden of great potential.
In the race to be
-
Simple Business Intelligence: Fact Or Phantom?
January 28, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreWith the requests for getting more information from existing data piling up like snow drifts in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania, IBM midrange shops are studying their query, reporting, and so-called business intelligence software options in hopes of finding the shovel that can dig them out. In doing so, discoveries are made that show that IBM i and its DB2 for i database has both tremendous capabilities and the potential for some disappointing outcomes.
For all of its limitations, the primordial Query/400 continues to be the favorite tool in shops that have otherwise regularly upgraded their hardware and software since the early
-
Connect 2013 (Lotusphere) Opens; Streaming Video Available
January 28, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe IBM Connect 2013 conference broke from the gate on January 27 with a heavy emphasis on social business transformation and knowledge sharing. For 20 years, this annual Orlando, Florida, event was called Lotusphere, and although that name hasn’t quite yet been wiped from the slate, it no longer fits with IBM’s dissolution of its Lotus division and the ensuing rebranding that the company is doing.
Unless you are a Lotus insider, a user, and a big fan, the Lotus brand is widely perceived to be out of touch with modern times. IBM is working feverishly to change that perception–which
-
Steve Will Keeps His i On The Prize
January 21, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreSteve Will was in junior high school when Frank Soltis and a small group of Rochester, Minnesota-based brainiacs were rolling up their sleeves and burning the midnight oil while drawing the blueprints to what would become the Application System/400, the business computer that defined midrange computing. Soltis is an IBM legend–retired but still actively involved in representing IBM and the IBM i-Power Systems platform. Will is considered by many to be a modern day Soltis, but he is having none of it.
Replacing a legend is never easy. And it’s not really fair to Will to ask him to carry
-
IBM: I Have Seen the Future And It Works
January 21, 2013 Dan Burger
… Read moreIt’s quite a ride from the era of the common man to the era of cognitive systems, but get on board, the Big Blue train is leaving the station.
IBM has some fun each year, and creates a little publicity buzz, by mixing budding technologies with market and social trends to whip up what it calls the “IBM Five in Five.” That is, the selection of five innovations made possible by computing and chosen because of their potential to change–within five years–the way humans work and play. According to IBM, we are about to enter the era of cognitive systems.