Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Big Blue Jacks Software Maintenance Prices For IBM i
February 25, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreI hate to tell you I told you so. No, really, I do. I didn’t want to be right about this. And as is the case with all prognostication, I was only partially right, so really, I didn’t want to cop to only being partly right. Back in January, in the lead story for the first issue of this year, it was reasonable to expect a maintenance price hike in 2013 on vintage System i and not-so-shiny Power Systems iron. There has indeed been a maintenance price hike, but it was on IBM i software, not IBM hardware.
See,
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Getting Short-Term Maintenance For Your Power i Machine
February 20, 2013 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI purchased a three-year maintenance contract when I bought my Power7 machine in 2010. The contract runs out in May but I need extended maintenance through July when I’m installing a new machine and returning the old machine to the leasing company. How do I extend my hardware/software maintenance for only two months without having to buy a one-year maintenance contract?
–Jean
This is a fairly common situation and one that IBM provides an out for in their maintenance contracts. Here’s how you can sign a one- or multi-year maintenance contract for your existing machine and then cancel the contract
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New CL String-Handling Functions
February 20, 2013 Ted Holt
… Read moreNote: The document accompanying this article is available for download here.
I love it when IBM enhances CL. When I hear of a new feature, my first thought is, “What can I do with this?” My mind has been spinning since Guy Vig first told me about CL’s new string-handling functions a few weeks ago. Let me tell you about these functions and some of the uses for them that have already occurred to me.
First, here are a few facts you need to be aware of:
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Java Wins Programming Beauty Pageant, But C and Objective C Gussy Up
February 18, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe Java programming language, bolstered by the adoption of Android-based smartphones and tablets in the market, has regained the crown as the top language in the Tiobe Programming Community Index put together by programming tool maker Tiobe Software.
The index is based on a number of different factors, including the availability of courses and training, the popularity of searches in Google, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, YouTube, and Baidu search engines, and the number of engineers with specific programming skills based on their employment and job searches. The Tiobe Index has been around for more than a decade, and it is
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IBM Canada Cuts Capacity On Demand Prices For Big Power Servers
February 18, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWell this one is not all that complicated, but we need you to be aware of it just the same.
On February 15, in announcement letter 313-015, IBM Canada cut the price of feature 4710 on the Power 780 (product number 9179) and Power 795 (product number 9119), from $1,270 to $999. (That’s in Canadian dollars, not U.S. dollars.) That feature is for 999 gigabyte-days of memory capacity. This feature allows you to buy 999 1GB increments of memory and activate it for peak loads when you need it and turn it off when you don’t. It doesn’t seem
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Storage And I/O Enhancements Come To Power Boxes
February 18, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWhenever IBM makes major processor announcements in the Power Systems line, it likes to roll out companion enhancements to the storage it attaches to or embeds within the boxes as well as updating network adapter and other I/O features for the systems. And, as you might expect, using these features on existing systems as well as new ones requires patches to the operating system. And so it is with the February 5 announcements.
In announcement letter 113-006, IBM revealed all of the storage and I/O enhancements that came out in conjunction with the new entry and midrange Power7+ servers,
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PureApplication Systems Get Power7+, But Not IBM i
February 18, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreYou would have to search high and low, across time and back again, to find a more pure application system than the Application System/400 and its forebears in the System/3X line and its great-grandchild, the Power Systems platform running IBM i. But oddly enough, as IBM announced the Power version of its PureApplication converged systems last week, the one thing it did not do is announce a variant of the stack that could support the IBM i operating system.
It is like blade servers all over again, with OS/400 getting such late and kludge support that the one customer set
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Storage, Software, And Services Drive Up Arrow’s Systems Biz In Q4
February 11, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe Enterprise Computing Solutions group of master distributor Arrow Electronics ended the fourth quarter on a high, with business being brisk enough to almost make up for decline in the component business that is the other engine of Arrow and its main competitor in the distribution racket, Avnet.
In the quarter ended in December, overall sales at Arrow fell by just under 1 point to $5.4 billion, and if you look at it in local currencies, sales were actually off 3 percent. So the weakening dollar helped the numbers a bit. Sales at the ECS group rose by 11
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IBM Puts On A Very Slick Power7+ Web Event
February 11, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreAs an IT journalist, I have to sit through more webcasts, interviews, and presentations than most of you have to sit through meetings. Some people put on a better show than others, and what I can tell you about the Webcast that the Power Systems division put together last Tuesday is by far the slickest thing I have seen in a long time. We’re talking Hollywood production values here, and to be honest, I was a bit surprised.
If you didn’t catch the webcast for the February 5 announcements, you can catch the replay here, and it was a
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Recognition Of IBM i Begins With Teamwork
February 11, 2013 Yvonne Enselman
… Read moreEvents keep reinforcing my opinion that it is imperative to address team building and communication between IT teams. Recently, I was talking to a friend about his frustration regarding his career as a developer. He has advanced skills and has been successful for more than 30 years on IBM midrange platforms. But he also has the feeling his every misstep will be used by the non-IBM i people in his organization as justification to move away from the platform.
For the past 10 years, developers working on all platforms and languages have been hammered about modernizing skills to remain marketable.