Dan Burger
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SAP Pre-Announces Record Q2 Revenues
July 16, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreInfor with its shopping list of IBM i-centric ERP businesses earns more than SAP in this niche. Thanks to its JD Edwards business, so does Oracle. But SAP is still the biggest of those fish in the ocean, it has thousands of IBM i installations, and its quarterly financial reports are eagerly awaited by the stock market mongers. And once again, SAP is eager to show off its record catch.
Let’s begin by noting this was the company’s best revenue-generating Q2 in history. A currency-adjusted 19 percent gain in software revenues put a snap in SAP’s step to the
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IBM i Marketing Plans Get The iManifest Touch
July 9, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreBoosting the public image of the IBM i operating system is a pretty steep mountain to climb. It is widely misunderstood, often mischaracterized, and repeatedly underestimated by those who are less familiar with it than they are with nuclear fusion. Any faithful follower of the IT Jungle publications knows about iManifest and how the Japanese have used it for brand-specific promotions while it has remained bed-ridden in the United States and the European, Middle East, and Africa markets.
Well, look who just got out of bed. It’s iManifest EMEA.
What have they done? They’ve come up with a focused plan
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The Job Market’s Irresistible Attractions
July 9, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreBig recruiting companies, like Dice, keep themselves in the news by continually collecting information from their clients–companies on the search for skilled employees and talented individuals looking for work–and then packaging that data for the media. It’s one of the key elements of content marketing, and Dice is very good at it.
When jobs are your business, and so many people want a job or a different job, your information is in demand, especially if the information pertains to hiring trends (sorry, not this month) or the most sought after skills. (Bingo!)
If you have these skills, you might
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PHP Web Development Gets RPG Summit Spotlight
July 9, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhen PHP, the Web application development language of millions, was brought into the IBM i community, there was a gag reaction. Not surprising because developers had just recently Java forced down their collective throats during the memorable “Learn Java or learn to flip burgers” era. But as it turned out, PHP has been much easier for RPG developers to swallow and its popularity has continued to grow.
“I think the advent of PHP has had a far greater impact in many ways than anything else (even Java) has done,” says Jon Paris, an RPG and IBM i advocate, author, instructor,
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DB2 For i Modernization Gets Assist From RPG OA
June 25, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreIf you don’t know something is broke, is that any reason not to fix it? That’s not a trick question. It’s another way of saying ignorance is bliss, which doesn’t carry a lot of weight in traffic court or database management. You might think you have a get out of jail free card because the IBM i operating system, with its built-in database management system, doesn’t need a database administrator, but that little marketing half-truth is exactly what “ignorance is bliss” is all about.
It’s true the IBM midrange computer doesn’t need a database administrator in the same way that
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Maxava Strengthens Euro Team, Readies iFoundation Grant Awards
June 25, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreRegardless of the economic maladies that have Europe tied in knots, the IT market is managing to keep its head above water, even if gains are likely to be fractional at best. It’s times like these when some companies move forward, looking to create an advantage that will pay off when the economy returns to something closer to normal. For example, last week the high availability and disaster recovery software vendor Maxava announced the addition of two senior-level executives to its European team.
The company has operated in the European region for 12 years from its office in the United
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JD Edwards Users Pondering Upgrade Options
June 18, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe Southern California JD Edwards user group (JDE SCUG) gathered last Wednesday for one of their quarterly collaboration sessions. It gave me an opportunity to talk with someone on the front lines working with a subset of customers that have the same or very similar IT dilemmas as everyone else, except that in this case, we’re talking about IBM i shops where the mix of Oracle and IBM can sometimes be volatile.
Steven Colgrove is the senior director of the west region for Denovo, an application and technology consulting company specializing in helping companies running JD Edwards
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How Bright Is Your Future?
June 18, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreAt a time when skeleton crews are manning the data centers and the norm is to maintain the status quo, increasing budgets for IT training and education are as hard to find as dry palms during the next round of layoff announcements. Maybe it’s not as bad as it was three years ago, but there are still plenty of stories going around about IBM i-based companies that want the latest and greatest technology, but they don’t have or can’t find the skilled people they need.
Companies that invest in IT training and education still exist and it only makes sense
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IBM i Apps on iPads Energize BakerCorp
June 12, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreGo mobile or go home. It’s almost come to that. If the face of your company, the folks who interact with customers and prospects, can’t access real-time information on a smartphone or a tablet, they aren’t dressed for success and your company loses a competitive edge. BakerCorp saw this situation unfolding and, to its credit, did something about it. BakerCop’s ERP system is green-screen based and the person in charge of mobilizing some key applications knew almost nothing about the software or the system that ran it.
Sounds like trouble, but it’s not. Early in the process of figuring out
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Upward Mobility: Taking Your IBM i With You
June 11, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreDiscussions about mobile computing in the enterprise are over. The discussions you should be having are about getting mobile computing into your enterprise. You may have noticed employees are already using their personal smartphones and tablets for work purposes, but when it comes to leveraging mobile devices and enterprise data that’s a short stick. Getting mobilized means making some wise decisions to get onboard quickly and be prepared for the long run.
It’s alarming when you think about how many mobile computing projects are being jump started with little or no direction beyond “We need it. Get it done.” Come