Timothy Prickett Morgan
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Future Coding
September 5, 2012 Paul Tuohy
… Read moreOne of my favorite benefits that comes from speaking at conferences is the great questions that get asked of me and other speakers. Even if we can answer the question, be assured the next time we’re gathered with colleagues over a cup of coffee (or other beverage of choice), one of us will say, “I was asked an interesting question at my last conference. . .”
At the last RPG & DB2 Summit, I was having coffee with Susan Gantner and Barbara Morris, when Susan uttered those intriguing words. The ensuing conversation didn’t result in a change to the answer
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New Software License Sales Stall At Agilysys
September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreRetailers and hotel and casino operators are on the leading edge of the economy, and when people get nervous about spending money on non-essentials, they are often the first ones to feel it. Sometimes, it is an overreaction to news. Sometimes it is just a reaction. Let’s hope for all our sakes that the downturn in software licensing in the June quarter for Agilysys is just a hiccup and not a spreading flu.
Agilysys, which last July got out of the remaining part of its hardware business that it had not already sold off to Arrow Electronics five and a
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zEnterprise EC12 Mainframe: Still The Big Iron
September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read morePower Systems had better thank their lucky stars that IBM is still investing in mainframes and can still rake in billions of dollars–my guess is around $15 billion over a two-year cycle–selling mainframe hardware and systems software. Because if IBM did not throw off most of that as profits, there would not be an IBM fab and there would not be a Power Systems biz at all. IBM would have long since ditched the server hardware business to focus on software and services.
To a very large extent, the System z product line not only keeps the rest of Big
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IBM Buys HR App Maker Kenexa For $1.3 Billion In Cash
September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreYou remember the days back in the early Gerstner era, when IBM wanted to assure independent software makers that it would not compete with them so they would port their wares to Big Blue’s servers, operating systems, and middleware? Well those days are long gone, and the acquisition of human resources software provider Kenexa last week just goes to show it.
Kenexa, which is based in the Philadelphia suburb of Wayne, Pennsylvania, was established in 1987 as a recruiting service for a bunch of different industry verticals. The company rolled out its first suite of software in 1993 and three
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Server Sales Slow As Buyers Await New Processors
September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreNo one was expecting for the server market to turn in a particularly strong second quarter, with so many different chips for systems either just entering the market or about to enter the market in the summer and fall. New processors always mean price/performance improvements in systems, so some customers buying now insist in price kits on current iron and others defer purchases entirely so they can get the shiny new boxes. Either way, sales in the current quarter have to go down.
And that is precisely what the box counters at IDC have figured out as they cases the
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IBM Power7+ Chips Give Servers A Double Whammy
September 4, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf you are in the middle of acquiring a Power7-based server to run IBM i, AIX, or Linux workloads, you might want to give it a rethink about right now. Because IBM has some interesting twists that are coming out with the next-generation Power7+ processors that will dramatically affect their bang for the buck and therefore what you should be paying now for any processing capacity or whole systems that you acquire.
IBM has been vague about exactly when the Power7+ chips and their new Power Systems servers will ship, but has said that the new processors will come out
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The Ethernet Switch Market Is Booming
August 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreThe server market has stalled a little bit as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, IBM, Oracle, and Fujitsu are in various stages of processor transitions. But the Ethernet switch market is going gangbusters as companies begin the transition to from Gigabit to 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching in the data center.
According to the box counters at IDC, the worldwide market for Layer 2 and 3 switching gear that adheres to the Ethernet protocol accounted for $5.52 billion in revenues, an increase of 8.5 percent year-over-year across all Ethernet port speeds. At Layers 3 through 7 in
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Vallee To Retire From Avnet As Revenues And Profits Weaken
August 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIn his 35 years at master reseller Avnet, Roy Vallee has spent 13 of them as chief executive officer and 14 of them as chairman, and he has seen many ups and downs in the systems and components rackets. And Vallee also knows that Avnet can roll with the punches and will do so after he retires from the company.
Avnet has been working on a succession plan for a number of years, tapping Rick Hamada last July to be CEO and a few weeks ago tapping board member William Schumann, executive vice president at FMC Technologies, to
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ECS Sales And Profit Bump Can’t Offset Components Slump At Arrow
August 27, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWith the economy slowing down in Europe and China, it is not an easy time in either the electronic components or IT systems business, as the most recent financial results from Arrow Electronics show.
In the second quarter ended in June, Arrow’s revenues dropped 7 percent, to $5.15 billion, and even with lower cost of sales and other expenses, net income for the company fell 26.8 percent to $114.4 million. Arrow simply needs a higher volume of business to make its numbers, but to be fair, if it did not have $13.3 million in restructuring charges in the quarter, the
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More Reader Feedback On Big Blue Gives A Solid Installed Base Number
August 27, 2012 Hey, TPM
… Read moreWell I, for one, am glad IBM put an actual figure to their active customer base, machines, and/or customers. At least it is 150,000 active paying businesses using the AS/400-i and gives me some credence for continuing to develop on them. I have five AS/400-i’s laying around and too many PCs. None of them are on maintenance, so the active figure maybe a tad low on those with used machines and no maintenance. And yes, I actively use only two of those i machines, and for development only.
–TS
To be precise, and as I said in my previous comment