TFH Volume: 19 Archives

Sirius to Top $1 Billion in Sales with MSI Systems Acquisition

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The availability of cheap money gathered up by private equity firms to make acquisitions has combined with an IT industry consolidating on so many fronts it can make you dizzy. And that is why it is really not much of a surprise that Sirius Computer Solutions acquired MSI Systems Integrators for an undisclosed sum. Both are among the largest players in the IBM Power Systems market, and have histories that stretch back to the AS/400 days.

Sirius is over 30 years old and is based in San Antonio, Texas. The company currently has 665 employees with a combined 3,800 different

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iManifest Web Cast: Looking for IBM i Loyalty

December 13, 2010 Dan Burger

Let’s hope iManifest can become the catalyst for change that so many people in the IBM i community have been hoping for. The hoping part is easy. It’s the consensus part that causes the community fits. Before there’s consensus, there needs to be participation and before that awareness. I see iManifest working on building its awareness level. Tomorrow’s Web cast is a step in that direction.

It is yet to be determined whether the IBM i community is unaware of iManifest or if it just doesn’t care. Let’s assume most are unaware. I can also make a fairly educated guess

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A Second Opinion on Third Quarter Server Sales

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

With server revenues being a kind of leading indicator for overall IT spending, the health and wealth of server vendors and various product lines within the systems racket are something that bears paying attention to each quarter. Which is why the market researchers at Gartner and IDC spend so much time trying to figure out what it going on with servers.

The Four Hundred walked you through Gartner’s analysis of third quarter server sales in last week’s issue, which looks at revenues and shipments for the overall market by vendor, as well as drilling down into RISC/Itanium boxes running

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As I See It: The Longevity Paradox

December 13, 2010 Victor Rozek

People born at the beginning of this century have a realistic chance of living into the next century. That’s great, but I’m going to hold my applause. Longevity is one of those mixed blessings, and it’s hard to know whether to celebrate or to weep. Having seen a representative number of so-called “assisted living facilities,” I can easily imagine a huge, doddering population wearing soiled Depends, sitting in tiny, overheated rooms, staring blankly at the television, waiting for someone to come in and speak loudly to them.

And all that quality of life for only $5,000 a month!

But we’re

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Mad Dog 21/21: Sheets for Brains

December 13, 2010 Hesh Wiener

In January 2009, Salvatore DiMasi made it a hat trick. He became the third consecutive Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives to resign in the wake of a federal indictment. The feds said DiMasi, his accountant, and a couple of their buddies took bribes from Cognos to steer software and services deals its way. IBM had paid nearly $5 billion for Cognos a year earlier, and paid again, this time $17.5 million, when it refunded all the money paid by Massachusetts to Cognos.

IBM undoubtedly hopes it is better at business intelligence than it was at due diligence.

IBM

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Holiday Holidays–That’s a Bake and a Wrap

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The patent-pending fruitcakes are baked, soaked in cognac, wrapped in fondant, and in transit to family and friends, including the devoted employees of Guild Companies, the publisher of the Four Hundred group of newsletters here at IT Jungle. That is how I know it is almost time to stop typing for a while.

This company, like baking holiday fruitcakes, is a labor of love. Nothing good is ever easy, and a fruitcake is about as popular as an AS/400 out there in IT Land. But just like IBM Rochester makes a system that is different, yet good, I happen to

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Northeast PA User Group Was Not Dead–Just Cocooning

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The members of the Northeast Pennsylvania Computer Users Group (NPCUG), which is located in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and which is a long-time user group devoted to the AS/400 and its successors, met in November and came this close to shutting down. But rather than do that, its 20 members have decided to transform the organization into a broader user group to server the IT community of that mountainous region of the Keystone State.

Jim Flannery, a senior systems analyst at Convergys, a customer relationship management software provider that does work with AT&T Mobility, is NPCUG’s most recent past president, and he

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Disk Storage Buyers Go Wild in the Third Quarter

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Just like the server racket, the disk storage business is still holding up and growing at a nice clip even after IT spending returns to something that is almost to the level set before the Great Recession. According to the latest statistics from IDC, companies worldwide consumed $6.97 billion in disk array storage in various shapes and sizes during the third quarter, representing an 18.5 percent growth rate against last year.

The amazing thing is how much storage capacity customers was consumed in Q3. The appetite for capacity, despite thin provisioning, storage virtualization, and other technologies that are supposed

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RJS Hires Sales and Technical Specialist Away from Quadrant Software

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

As The Four Hundred reported last week, a private equity firm called Candescent Partners has bought document management software company Quadrant Software. But one of the employees at Quadrant has jumped to rival RJS Software.

RJS has tapped Kurt Wachtendorf to be director of solutions at the Burnsville, Minnesota, company. Wachtendorf was director of sales and chief solution architect at Quadrant Software, where he worked for more than seven years. Prior to that, Wachtendorf was vice president of sales at TamGroup, an IBM server and storage business partner located in San Rafael, California. Wachtendorf has been

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Reader Feedback on As I See It: Stressing Over Stress

December 13, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Victor,

I just wanted to take the time to let you know how much I enjoyed your article on Stressing Over Stress. I really related to the perspective and examples you chose in your insightful writing. It is a nice surprise to read an IT article containing content that can be applied to many aspects of everyday life.

Nice job (to you and your wife), and thank you!

–Ken

Hi Victor,

I love your writing, keep it up! It’s totally awesome. You always seem to pick the subjects that, while not technical, are very relevant to life in this

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