Timothy Prickett Morgan
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IBM Italy Helps Push Power Systems Gear With Rebate Deals
January 28, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreLast week in The Four Hundred, I told you about a deal that IBM was offering in Europe to Power Systems resellers who peddled ISV software on top of the systems. As it turns out, IBM Italy has another similar deal aimed at getting customers to upgrade to new Power Systems machines using Power7 processors, and in one special case, a Power6+ server.
In announcement letter ZA132-1014, which was announced on January 15 and then amended on January 23 (when I actually saw it pop up in the increasingly crazy IBM announcement database), IBM is offering rebates to
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IBM Mainframes Jump, Power Systems Drop Ahead Of Power7+ Rollout
January 28, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf IBM could control the situation its way, it would probably never launch new Power Systems and System z mainframe systems anywhere even close to on the same cycle because keeping them spaced would allow its Systems and Technology Group to operate more like a multi-cylinder engine, running smoothly, rather than a pile driver, sometimes up and sometimes down. But managing chip designs and system rollouts is complex–being late is normal and being on time is unusual–and companies still think on annual cycles.
I continue to believe that IBM intended to ship the Power7+ chips back in October 2011, which
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Coming Soon: Entry And Midrange Power7+ Servers
January 28, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe long-awaited upgrade to the Power7+ processors for entry and midrange rack and tower servers looks to be on the horizon and moving toward us fast. IBM is gearing up for its next Smarter Computing launch event, which will be on February 5. And the circumstantial evidence and the word on the street both point to a Power Systems launch. This is not exactly a surprise to anyone, of course.
I was able to ferret out plenty of details about the Power7+ processors months ahead of when Big Blue started talking about them at the Hot Chips 24 semiconductor conference
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Stopping Unauthorized Users From FTPing To Your IBM i
January 23, 2013 Hey, Joe
… Read moreMy programmers keep setting up automatic FTP downloads from the network using the wrong user profile. For security reasons, they are only supposed to use a special FTP download user profile, but they keep using their own profiles and I have no way to stop this. How can I lock down FTP so that they can only use an authorized user FTP profile for their client FTP sessions?
–Bob
You can easily use an FTP exit point to prevent unauthorized users from starting an FTP session on your IBM i partition.
An IBM i exit point is a specific point
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Easily Create Help Text For Commands
January 23, 2013 Ted Holt
… Read moreExtending IBM i by writing one’s own commands is empowering and gratifying, but a command without help text is like scrambled eggs without salsa. Fortunately, generating help text for a command is easy, thanks to a technique I learned from a very talented programmer named Chris Wages. Let me show you how it’s done.
First, you must have a command, of course. Here’s the source code for command DOIT.
CMD PROMPT('Do it') PARM KWD(HOW) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(7) RSTD(*YES) + DFT(*WELL) + VALUES(*WELL *BETTER *BEST) + EXPR(*YES) + PROMPT('How should I do it?') PARM KWD(WHEN) TYPE(*CHAR) LEN(8) RSTD(*YES) + DFT(*MORNING) + VALUES(*MORNING -
Dealing With Library Lists In RSE/RDP
January 23, 2013 Susan Gantner
… Read moreI’m happy to say that I’m hearing from more and more people who are beginning to finally break away from SEU to use Remote Systems Explorer (RSE) in Rational Developer for Power Systems (RDP). Perhaps the fact that IBM finally stopped updating SEU for new language features as of V7.1 has caused more shops to consider the move.
I heard from one newbie RSE user the other day with fairly common issue; he wanted to know how to deal with library lists in the RSE environment? In his case, he has a few different library lists due to various packages
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SAP Profits From HANA Appliance, Cloud, And Plain Old Software
January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf Oracle thought it had killed archrival SAP, it looks like the German application software giant was only sleeping.
In the December quarter, SAP booked €1.94 billion in software license fees, up 9 percent, and within this segment, the company’s cloud software business, driven by acquisitions and organic growth, was up a stunning 2,000 per cent to €126 million. Software and related services revenues accounted for €4.23 billion, up 14 percent year-on-year. Total sales came to €5.02 billion, up 12 percent. Operating profits fell by 5 percent to €1.59 billion.
On a full-year basis, SAP’s revenues came in at
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IBM Europe Gives Rebates To Power Resellers Who Push ISV Wares
January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreAs we report elsewhere in this issue, IBM‘s customers in the United States are being treated to a sweetened trade-in deal if they are buying new Power7 or Power7+ iron and trade-in old Power or non-IBM iron in the process. IBM Europe is taking a slightly different approach in a deal that it announced last week: it will pay Power System resellers an extra rebate it they peddle the boxes with specific software created by third parties.
In announcement letter ZA13-1004, which came out on January 15, IBM says that it will pay “business partner solution providers,” perhaps
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IBM Doubles Up Rebates On Power Systems Trade-In Deal
January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreI told you so. It is the new year, and as I said in the opening issue of The Four Hundred, IBM would be doing some wheeling and dealing to move Power Systems machinery ahead of the rollout of the rest of the Power7+ systems in 2013.
So if you are looking to upgrade a vintage AS/400, iSeries, or System i box, their RS/6000, pSeries, or System p equivalents, or any number of non-IBM server iron, listen up. Because IBM has just doubled up the rebates on its long-running, on-again-off-again, Power Systems Trade-In Program.
Actually, if you sift through
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IBM Taps Ingram Micro, Tech Data To Peddle Power Systems, Storage
January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt is not every week that the Power Systems platform gets big news that is not related to hardware or systems software that has the potential to shake up the competitive position of the Power business, but last week was one of them. We have been telling you about the Power7+ systems and how IBM is looking to better compete against X86 iron. In November, IBM put $4 billion on the table for partner financing to move more iron. And now, Big Blue is tapping Ingram Micro and Tech Data to broaden its channel sales for Power Systems and enterprise