Timothy Prickett Morgan
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IBM Tweaks Power Systems Deals, Enables Encryption and Web Development
February 14, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIn addition to cutting some prices on IBM i Solution Edition end user entitlements and formalizing an i5/OS and i license-sliding scheme to make licenses more fluid across machines as is reported on elsewhere in this edition of The Four Hundred, IBM also made a few tweaks to some existing deals and some other announcements that are relevant to OS/400 and i shops.
First of all, IBM has made some minor changes to two existing deals that gives customers rebates if they are installing Power Systems for the first time or replacing other iron with Power Systems. In the
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More Software Pricing Carrots for IBM i Shops
February 14, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIBM is making some more moves to try to get customers using older OS/400 and i5/OS releases and older iron to move up to more modern IBM i releases and the latest Power Systems hardware. The moves follow the extension of the marketing of i5/OS V5R4 until May 27 this year and a 25 percent licensing increase on older Power-based systems for that software–announcements that Big Blue made as the new year was getting under way.
In announcement letter 211-021, IBM did a bunch of different things. First, it has formalized expanding an IBM i license transfer scheme that
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Jack Henry Boosts Revenues, But Pushes Profits Up Faster in Q2
February 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreFinancial software and services provider Jack Henry and Associates has done well in its most recent quarter, pumping up both revenues and profits. As a dominant vendor in its financial niche, and one that is a big player in the IBM i ecosystem, the company is a good bellwether for the overall i ecosystem.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2011 ended December 31, Jack Henry had revenues of $242.6 million, up 15 percent. Software license fees grew 29 percent to $15.5 million, including some products that run on the OS/400 and i operating systems. Hardware sales, which include Power
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JDA Breaks Records in Q4 Thanks to i2 Acquisition
February 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreJDA Software, which sells retailing and supply chain application software, has successfully integrated its i2 Technologies acquisition and is showing good financial results in 2010 thanks to that deal.
In the fourth quarter ended on December 31, JDA posted $168,8 million in aggregate revenues, up 57.5 percent and driven primarily from the acquisition of i2. However, higher costs on most fronts plus $14 million in litigation costs relating to a lawsuit that has been going on for years with i2 cut into profits. Net income fell by 31.2 percent, to $5.8 million. Had it not been for the lawsuit,
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SAP to Contest $1.3 Billion TomorrowNow Award to Oracle
February 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt looks like German software giant SAP is not quite ready to hand over the $1.3 billion in damages that a California jury awarded rival Oracle in the TomorrowNow lawsuit.
On February 3, SAP filed a motion with the court contesting the amount of the damages awarded to Oracle, which was the same day that the court entered the judgment awarded by the jury last November 23.
“Today the Court entered judgment in the Oracle v. SAP/TomorrowNow litigation, which is a procedural matter that occurs after a jury verdict,” SAP explained in a statement. “As stated before, we have
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Does the iSeries Have a Victim Mentality?
February 7, 2011 Herman Woudenberg
… Read moreDoes the iSeries have a victim mentality? Does the whole IT industry have one? I am actually beginning to think the whole i community, which owns one of the most world’s most advanced computers, is its own worst enemy.
The IT victim mentality was hammered home to me by Barbra Cooper, group vice president and CIO for Toyota Motor Sales USA. I was reading a review of a book called The CIO Edge, which was published last November, where she asked the question “You know why the perception of IT has suffered for 30 years?” Cooper rhetorically answered, “It’s
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Drilling Down into IBM’s Real 2010 Systems Business
February 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreFor the past couple of quarters, I have been refining my model of IBM‘s server business, and I think with the incarnation I built to analyze the company’s fourth quarter and full year results for 2010, I have something that is closer to reality than I have ever put together before. And it shows just how much Big Blue is, despite all of its jaw-boning about services and Smarter Planet, dependent on good, old-fashion systems.
You know, systems. What the System/360 and the System/38 were, and what the Application System/400 was. A collection of integrated server platforms with operating
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IBM Kills Off Remaining Power6 and Power6+ Systems
February 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf you thought it was tough to get your hands on an Power 520 or Power 550 server using one of IBM‘s older dual core Power6 or Power6+ processors in the fourth quarter, then it is going to get a whole lot harder to get one of these machines very soon. That is because Big Blue has pulled the plug on these and other Power Systems machines in the same generation and will stop selling them in the coming months.
With exceptions in the Greater China Group, which is something I have never seen before in an IBM announcement
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Admin Alert: QPWDRULES Rules!!! Opening Up User Password Options with i 6.1
February 2, 2011 Joe Hertvik
… Read moreLike many i/OS shops, we recently started upgrading several systems from i/OS V5R4Mx to i 6.1. One of the more interesting features about i 6.1 is the new Password rules (QPWDRULES) system value, which allows you to control and extend password composition settings to designate all your password rules in one place and to include password composition options that weren’t available in earlier versions of the operating system.
What is QPWDRULES?
Think of QPWDRULES as a password composition rule aggregator. In earlier i/OS and AS/400 operating systems, IBM did not consolidate password composition system values in one place on
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Another Reason Why Function Subprocedures Should Not Modify Their Parameters
February 2, 2011 Ted Holt
… Read moreI’ve never liked the idea of functions modifying their parameters. It seems to me that a function should accept zero or more input values and return one and only one value. Modifying a parameter is a roundabout way of returning another value. While looking for something in the ILE RPG reference recently, I found yet one more reason why it’s not a good idea for a function to modify a parm.
This is IBM‘s example code with my modifications to make it run.
Figure 189. Sample coding of a call with side effects *..1....+....2....+....3....+....4....+....5....+....6....+....7...+.... H dftactgrp(*no) actgrp(*new) D fn