• Is the Smart Cube the New i?

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  While I have been watching IBM for longer than I have done just about anything else in my life except watching Penn State football and marveling that I can get paid to do the job I do, even after all these years, sometimes Big Blue does something that surprises me. Sometimes, the surprise is caused by the company’s utter stupidity, or incompetence. Sometimes, it is the genius of its engineering. Sometimes, it is just the way IBM puts something and then the coffee comes out my nose. So it is with announcement letter 108-904, which you can read here for

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• You Can Still Walk Upgrade Paths with Power Systems i

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In the server racket, the term upgrade has a lot of different meanings. In general, it involves some means of boosting the processing capacity of a machine, be it from additional processors, memory, disk spindles, or I/O capacity. But when most people talk about upgrading their AS/400, iSeries, System i, or Power Systems i box, they are talking about adding processing capacity. And sometimes, that means a little change inside a server or swapping out most or all of the guts in a box to make a change to the system. Even with a substantial amount of engineering change in

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• IBM Sues to Block Server Executive from Joining Apple

  November 3, 2008 Alex Woodie

  IBM last week filed a lawsuit to prevent former executive Mark Papermaster from taking a job at Apple. IBM claims that, as its “top expert” in the Power architecture and head of development for X64-based blade servers, Papermaster would use his knowledge to hurt IBM’s server business as he helps expand Apple’s fledgling server business, and thereby violate a non-compete clause along the way. Papermaster told his supervisors on October 20 that he would leave Big Blue for Apple after 26 years with the company. IBM says it tried hard to stop him, offering him a “substantial increase” in

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• The i Gives Manufacturers and Distributors Cost Control

  November 3, 2008 Dan Burger

  You make and distribute products. That’s your business–one, the other, or both. But the pressure is on to squeeze more efficiency out of operations and drive more profits to the bottom line. You may have your choice of dragons to slay, but the decision to improve transportation planning, shipment execution, financial settlement, and tracking visibility are popular choices. Not coincidentally, this is one of those IBM System i strongholds. Transportation management is closely tied to demand management, increased service levels, and more frequent inventory turns. But from the IT perspective, it is mostly about integration. Integration with enterprise resource management

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• Forrester CEO Weighs In on IT Spending for 2009

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you had a crystal ball, or any inanimate object (such as a computer running a simulation like nothing Earth has ever seen and likely never will), and you could predict IT spending in the coming year, you could make yourself a whole lot of money. But you don’t. So that means we have to listen to what the experts have to say and then try to reckon our own way through their prognostications, perhaps with a little of our own input. As the chief executive officer at IT market research firm Forrester Research, George Colony speaks to a

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• Reader Feedback on IBM’s Q3 in Servers, Redux: The i and p Platforms Do OK

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  You listed many areas where IBM has divested itself of revenue streams (PC, disk drives, networking, printers, etc.). There is one you left out (sort of) and it might be the most telling. A few months ago, Lenovo started offering Intel servers “based on technology licensed from IBM.” These are nearly clones of the IBM x3200, x3400, x3650, etc. This is the heart of the entry Intel server lineup from IBM. While IBM has not (yet) dropped its entry Intel servers, it’s not difficult to imagine that they might. First they license the hardware technology to Lenovo. Then they either

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• An AS400/iSeries User Group That Is Still Kicking

  November 3, 2008 Hey, TPM

  My name is Anthony Leach, Sr., and I am one of the organizers of our AS400/iSeries user group. We used to be called the Sacramento Midrange User Group or SMUG. We are now the Power Sacramento Users Group or Power SURG. We have been around for quite some time now and recently renamed ourselves to better reflect the changes to the platform. We have regular meetings at least three times a year and thanks to IBM‘s generosity, we hold these at the IBM offices in Sacramento. And anyone who is interested is welcome to attend and join up! I

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• IBM’s EGL Gets an Online User Group

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM and its software development partners that are interested in seeing its Rational development tools and the Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) that the tools kick out have established an online user group dedicated to Rational Business Developer and its EGL bolt-on, according to a notice we received from PKS Software. We didn’t find out in time to let you know about this ahead of time, but the RBD/EGL for IBM i Online User Group had a meeting on October 31 (last Friday) at 10 a.m. Eastern. The user group says that it plans to have a quarterly Web seminar

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• SAP: “Only a fool would try to predict what is going to happen”

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Well, that title pretty much sums up the sorry state of the business world these days, right? That was Leo Apotheker, the co-chief executive officer of German application software giant SAP, when he was asked by the Wall Street Journal about projecting where the fourth quarter of 2008 might be in terms of revenues and profits. SAP reported its third quarter financial results last week, with software revenues up 7 percent to €763 million and services revenues (including software support) up 15 percent to €1,994 million. While this was pretty good given the economic environment, the numbers were supposed

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• JDA Shakes Off the Bad Economy, Sets Sales Record in Q3

  November 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  An economy never goes to zero, never anywhere close to that, and in hard times, some companies, for whatever reason, do better than others. While plenty of public companies are taking it on the chin financially these days thanks to the economic meltdown, JDA Software does not appear to be one of them. For the third quarter ended September 30, JDA reported $98.4 million, up 5.1 percent, with software license sales of $23 million within that total figure, up a stunning 48.4 percent. For the nine months of 2008, JDA has $284.1 million in sales, up 3.3 percent, with software

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