TFH Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Archives - Page 2 of 3

Bang for the Buck Drives Server Acquisitions in the U.S., Says IDC

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

This one will knock you over with a feather. The analysts at IDC have released a report that says that “better value for money” is the main factor in choosing a server platform and a server vendor, almost regardless of industry vertical. IDC said “almost.” The exception to this rule is the public sector, where relationships and long contracts seem to matter more.

IDC has just completed a survey of server buyers in the United States, and companies in the manufacturing, services, and healthcare sectors all agreed that better value for money–with value being more than just performance bang, of

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iSeries Sales Down 18 Percent in Q4 as Users Await i5s and V5R4

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Last week, IBM reported its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year in 2005, and as is usually the case for a large, multinational corporation with a complex set of product lines, Big Blue had plenty of ups and downs in the quarter and is finding it hard to generate revenue growth even as it manages to squeeze profits out of those products. But, the company, with over $88.3 billion in sales (excluding its divested PC and disk drive businesses) and $8.7 billion in net income for 2005, is still by a smidgen the largest IT supplier in

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Slashdot Flamefest Pits the iSeries Against Windows

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you have some time and you want to see what the open source intelligentsia–and I use that latter word somewhat sarcastically– is thinking about the iSeries and how it stacks up against Windows, you might want to check out this posting on the Slashdot Web site. A Slashdot reader called Rabid Cougar explained that he is a system admin for a small manufacturing company that has an ERP system that runs on an IBM AS/400, but that this ERP system is out of gas and needs to be upgraded. Rabid Cougar asked the Slashdot community what they would do:

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IBM Reshuffles Systems and Technology Executives

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It’s a new year, and one with its own challenges. And big companies like IBM like to cross-train their top executives to sit in various regions and management, development, and sales jobs throughout their careers so they can have seasoned, well-rounded executives running their groups and divisions. And that is why IBM last week rejiggered its organizational chart and moved around some of its key executives within the Systems and Technology Group, which makes processors and servers and develops operating systems.

Bill Zeitler, senior vice president and group executive in charge of the Systems and Technology Group, announced the executive

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Kronos Expands Further into Gaming with TimeWorks, Compu-Cash Acquisitions

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Einstein didn’t prove that time is money, but if he had been working on Wall Street instead of a patent office in Berlin, he might have. Perhaps no software vendor understands that time is money better than Kronos, which practically owns the market for time-keeping and related employee management software. Last week, Kronos extended its control over the market by making two more acquisitions, this time relating to workforce management in the gaming industry.

Kronos is a publicly traded company that is headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, and has over 2,900 employees. It was founded in 1977 and has grown

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The Job Market in 2006, Part 1: Are iSeries Shops Hiring?

January 23, 2006 Mary Lou Roberts

Last week, for a brief moment that most of us (except the short-sellers) hope will return soon, the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 11,000. In and of itself, the Dow is not necessarily an indicator of employment. To be sure, stocks frequently rise when companies announce major layoffs and restructuring plans. But a steadily increasing stock market can certainly show confidence in the economy, and generally speaking, when the economy does well, hiring goes up.

That seems to be the case now. A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Labor announced the January 2005 report (data for December 2005)

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Arrow Electronics’ Support Net Launches Smart Shuffle iSeries Reseller Plan

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Arrow Electronics is one of the largest distributors of servers in the world, and is one of the three key master distributors of IBM‘s eServer product lines. The other two master distributors are also “A” companies, specifically Avnet and Agilysys. And all three companies are very competitive, and they want their downstream resellers to sell as much IBM iron as they can.

That’s why Arrow’s Support Net division has launched the Smart Shuffle program, which is a business development effort that seeks to help Arrow resellers peddle more iSeries iron and expand the solutions that these resellers can

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A Little More Insight into IBM’s Server Sales in Q4 and 2005

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

While IBM provides a fair amount of detail concerning the growth and declines in its dozens of key product lines, it has very rarely only talked about the absolute revenue figures for any key product line–and certainly not since the Securities and Exchange Commission instituted regulations in the last decade that do not allow selective disclosure. Which means IBM never talks specifically about how any of its groups, divisions, and units are doing in terms of dollars and cents.

Like other public companies, IBM cannot tell any customer, investor, analyst, or journalist any piece of information relevant to the performance

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Agilysys Opens Innovation Center for IBM Wares in New York City

January 23, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

If you are a company using iSeries applications or a reseller that tries to peddle them in the New York City metropolitan area, be glad you don’t have to pay the rent on this one. Cleveland-based Agilysys last week has announced the grand opening of its Business Partner Innovation Center in the heart of New York–at Five Penn Plaza, to be specific.

The center, which was opened in conjunction with IBM, is just north of Madison Square Garden, which means if you are trying out some new Big Blue technologies, you can catch a hockey game, a basketball game,

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