Dan Burger
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IBM Trumpets LotusLive Successes, New App Partnerships
January 31, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM is feeling particularly social this week. That’s what an event like Lotusphere will do for Big Blue. To set the stage for Lotusphere–IBM’s week of social network and collaboration software celebration–the company put the emphasis on LotusLive. That’s IBM tools for collaboration–you know, email, Web conferencing, social networking–in a public cloud, or, if you prefer, an IBM-managed stack of systems and software running at your location. Let the fanfare begin.
Cloud computing is on the rise (more on that in just a minute) and IBM shared a list of companies that are already onboard with LotusLive. That list includes
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There’s More IT Jobs, But Stingy Salaries Cause Unrest
January 24, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreYou probably think you have a better chance of catching a cold than catching a break in the IBM i job market. Well, that probably depends on how recently you’ve had a cold or job. If you haven’t had a cold in a while, you’re due. If you haven’t had a job in a while, your odds are getting better there, too. At least that’s what the latest employment survey results from CareerBuilder indicate.
Compared to a chilly 2010, companies will be warming up to the idea of adding full-time, permanent employees during 2011. That prediction covers all professions, but
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ASNA’s Newest RPG to .NET Option Now Available
January 18, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreThere’s more than one road to take when going from traditional IBM i green-screen applications to Web-based apps. One of those options is a new product from ASNA, a company with a history of products that favor Microsoft .NET development and presentation tools. ASNA’s newest product is called Wings, and the company announced its general availability last week. Four Hundred Stuff reported on the coming of Wings last October.
Of particular note is that Wings uses IBM‘s Open Access: RPG Edition (OAR), a methodology that allows RPG programs to redirect display file I/O–the traditional 5250 data stream–to ASP.NET
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Lotusphere Coming into View; Social Business Looms Big
January 17, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreSocial networking has become a significant factor in the business world. Companies are lining up to tell their “Fastest gun in the West” success stories on a multitude of networking sites. The IT industry can’t do enough to help these stories be heard. IBM‘s Lotus division, for one, is doing all it can to promote “social business.” With Lotusphere coming up the end of this month, there will be a hail of social businesses bullets ricocheting around the Web.
There are several business objectives that command a lot of attention in conversations about what it is that social networks
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ASNA Splits from BluePhoenix
January 12, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreSometimes breaking up is not all that hard to do. When ASNA and BluePhoenix tied the knot in August 2007, no one would have bet that in less than three and a half years later the two companies would go their separate ways. ASNA, for 28 years a vendor in the IBM midrange, announced last week it was leaving BluePhoenix, a company focused on the mainframe business. Anne Ferguson, president of ASNA, called the move “a management buyout.”
The “new” ASNA emerges from the BluePhoenix years somewhat changed from the San Antonio, Texas-based company that was looking to build the
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In the Best Interests of IBM i
January 10, 2011 Dan Burger
… Read moreIt’s been a long time coming. And it has a long way yet to grow. But the idea that the IBM i platform is a wise platform choice for a significant number of existing customers and that many companies are unaware of its attributes is reason enough for supporters to come together. Just prior to the holidays, iManifest Americas presented the first of what is expected to be many Webcasts aimed at building an army of awareness enhancers.
This is a gathering of like-minded folks, but it’s apparent there are differences of opinion and points to be debated.
Still, it’s
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RPG & DB2 Summit Emphasizes Improved Skills to Defend IBM i
December 14, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreRPG & DB2 Summit Emphasizes Improved Skills to Defend IBM i
The workforce in the IBM i community is facing some serious challenges. It’s a rapidly changing world and enterprise computing isn’t just going along for the ride; it’s driving the bus. The same old IT answers aren’t cutting it any longer. To survive you have to adapt. For RPG developers and DB2 engineers, that means expanding skills and learning to exploit the capabilities that are built into the IBM i operating system running on Power Systems servers.
Education and training have never been more important. Some people and some
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iManifest Web Cast: Looking for IBM i Loyalty
December 13, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreLet’s hope iManifest can become the catalyst for change that so many people in the IBM i community have been hoping for. The hoping part is easy. It’s the consensus part that causes the community fits. Before there’s consensus, there needs to be participation and before that awareness. I see iManifest working on building its awareness level. Tomorrow’s Web cast is a step in that direction.
It is yet to be determined whether the IBM i community is unaware of iManifest or if it just doesn’t care. Let’s assume most are unaware. I can also make a fairly educated guess
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Cloud Beats Most In-House Security, Says IBM CTO
December 6, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreCloud computing is confusing. It helps if you study it in bite-sized portions. For midrange shops running their core business applications on the IBM i and OS/400 platforms formerly known as AS/400, iSeries, System i, and now Power Systems, there are three considerations that should grab your eyeballs. They are skills, security, and services. You can look at them individually or in combination, but they will likely be a primary factor in whether the cloud is important to you now or in the near future.
We have cloud proliferation. Every day new clouds come puffing out of virtual smokestacks, if
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Get the Discount: COMMON Conference 2011
December 6, 2010 Dan Burger
… Read moreAnytime is the right time to demonstrate you’re a cost-conscious employee, right? And you can also explain the return on investment that improving IT skills provides, right? Put those two things together and make a case for early registration to the COMMON 2011 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which occurs May 1 through 4.
If you get that registration accomplished by December 31, the savings is $400. That will buy a round trip airline ticket from just about anywhere in the continental United States.
The standard price (no early registration discount applied) for full conference registration is $1,695