Dan Burger
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Thinking Strategically About IT As A Service
February 27, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreReal change doesn’t come from the change machine, where a dollar will get you four quarters but it doesn’t change what you can buy with the money. The IBM midrange, on the other hand, could be in for some real change. I’m talking about the change that comes with consuming IT as a service instead of buying it as a product. Are we any closer to that happening than we were five years ago? Could be. Here’s why.
Although it’s tempting to say it all comes down to money and saving it whenever and wherever you can, that’s not the
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Application Maintenance Outsourcing Is On The Rise
February 27, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreLike a horror movie sequel, the outsourcing of application maintenance work has brushed off the dirt of its would-be grave and is on the prowl again, thirsty for the blood of programmers here in the USA. Outsourcing never really died. It just fell off the pace that was being set prior to 2009, when the trend stumbled rather badly thanks to the Great Recession.
According to a recently released study by Computer Economics, the number of organizations that are outsourcing application maintenance work has risen during the past two years to near pre-recession levels.
After a peek at this
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looksoftware Completes RPG OA Roadmap
February 20, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe RPG Open Access product roadmap at looksoftware continues to unfold. When last we heard from this application tool vendor, it had two products enhanced using RPG OA technology–one generally available and the other in beta testing. That was May 2011. Two other products were in the pipeline. Last week, I learned the final pieces in the IBM i tool maker’s RPG OA efforts are buttoned up and testing has been completed.
If you’re like a lot of people in IBM midrange shops who are thinking about the future of their application development programs, the latest news from looksoftware should
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RPG & DB2 Summit Picks Tipton for Keynote
February 20, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreRPG & DB2 Summit Picks Tipton for Keynote
System i Developer, the education and training firm that stages the twice yearly RPG & DB2 Summits, has selected Robert Tipton as the keynote speaker for the upcoming Summit scheduled for March 26 through 28 in Fort Worth, Texas. Tipton–a consultant, educator, and author–will discuss bringing innovation into business operations.
Tipton is a seasoned veteran of the IBM i community, with involvement dating to the AS/400 days. He knows the territory well, which gives his message–a mixture of attitude adjustment, performance enhancement, and taking joy in what you do–added relevance. His
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The Storage Cocktail Is Blended, Not Shaken
February 13, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreI’ll bet very few of you have ever heard of the George Crump strategy. Well, that’s about to change. At least for those of you who are curious what a storage analyst has to say about the IBM midrange market. Crump is president of a technology assessment company called Storage Switzerland, a company that evaluates and reports on products, the technology inside the products, and the organizations that are current and potential customers.
There are many storage strategies to consider, and Crump began our conversation last week by explaining that he believes in a blend. So you are not
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Paul Schlieben: Founder, SoftLanding Systems, 1945-2012
February 13, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreYou sometimes learn a lot of life’s lessons from a person you work with, work for, and even sometimes compete against. Those who knew Paul Schlieben through his company have great praise for him. Not just as a boss or a successful businessman, but as the head of a family. He made his business his family. His employees, his customers, his associates and colleagues, and, I think, even his competitors recognized he was something special. It encompassed being a smart businessman of solid character, a friend, a mentor, and a person of great thoughtfulness.
His passing last Thursday leaves many
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Charges Dropped, Rational Open Access Goes Free
February 6, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreThere’ll be no confetti dropping from the ceiling or champagne corks popping, but IBM‘s announcement that Rational Open Access: RPG Edition becomes available as a free PTF beginning February 14 deserves a little fanfare. Here’s a technology with a lot of promise, the native GUI interface as some call it, that’s finally available without blood, sweat, and tears poured into the ordering process. And, even better, without any licensing charges.
The PTFs are the short-term solution to getting RPG OA into the hands of those who have complained to IBM for that past two years. By May, RPG OA
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RPG Open Access: You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know
February 6, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreFor the past two years RPG Open Access technology has been available, yet it remained unseen and even unheard by a great many people in the IBM i community. A combination of low visibility–partly related to a few ISVs taking the lead on some projects, while onlookers waited to see how the projects turned out–and limited budgets, which put a lot of IT and other expenditures on the skids. Application modernization projects have sprouted here and there, but let’s just say it’s not burning down the house. It’s at a point, however, where we should see a green-screen fade.
Another
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Rolling With The Job Market
February 6, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreGot a head full of ideas, but no job or maybe the wrong job? Maybe this will help. It’s a listing of staffing priorities for 2012 compiled by the career data-mining specialists at Dice, with info based on data scooped from the brains of 1,200 tech-focused hiring managers and recruiters.
Many of you IBM i and RPG propellerheads aren’t going to like this, but number one on the list of skills that lead to jobs is Java. I know . . . next to the notice of mandatory attendance at another meeting where reductions in healthcare benefits are discussed,
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Anyone For LPAR?
January 30, 2012 Dan Burger
… Read moreAmong the IBM i user base, you often hear about the great technology being used by the customers at the enterprise end of the spectrum. Meanwhile, in the small to midsize shops, you hear complaints that the technology is too complex. The functionality could be put to use, but the complexity is prohibitive. Logical partitioning, or LPAR in the IBM mainframe and now Power Systems lingo, is one of the technologies that fits that description.
You’ll find LPARs being used in just about every large enterprise that depends on the IBM i for core business applications. When you explore the