• Still Wanted: A Power-i System of Systems

  July 18, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM is all about “smarter systems” and “workload optimized systems” these days in its marketing, and as far as I can tell, in the past two years the company has not done anything to bring the kinds of focused design it has for supercomputing and mainframe shops, just to name two, to bear on the Power Systems/IBM i base. And I think the company is missing a big opportunity to re-engage in a big way with those midrange customers. What got me to thinking about this, of course, was last week’s launch by Big Blue of the mini mainframe called

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• Post-Recession IT Jobs and Spending Lackluster, Surveys Say

  July 18, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Total IT spending in North America increased about 2 percent the first half of the year, according to the latest study from Computer Economics. However, the increase was less than IT spending jumped following previous recessions, as organizations spent less per user and make due with a leaner permanent IT workforce. And according to Janco Associate‘s latest IT salary survey, middle managers and non-line IT executives continue to feel the salary crunch, as compensation creeps forward slowly. There were a number of mixed messages coming out of Computer Economics’ latest report, which has been conducted annually for the

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• Hosted Services And Great Expectations

  July 18, 2011 Dan Burger

  For 10 or more years, we’ve been hearing how hosted or managed services, software as a service, and cloud computing is sweeping across the business landscape picking up customers like a Hoover sucks up dirt. But what is “the dirt” here? In the IBM i user community quite a few ISVs offer shared computing models. But it doesn’t seem like the world is beating a path to the managed services door. Not long ago, I read a survey-based article that indicated one out of every four small to midsize companies are using cloud services. The article forecasted that one out

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Smart Fellers

  July 18, 2011 Hesh Wiener

  Remember tongue twisters? You know what you want to express, but it just doesn’t come out right. One smart feller, he felt smart. Two smart fellers, they both felt smart. Three smart fellers, they all felt smart. Tongue twisters remind me of IBM‘s Lotus division. Lotus always had a little trouble getting its message across. That’s how Excel beat 1-2-3 years ago. Now Lotus’s Domino server and Notes client could go the way of 1-2-3 because people armed with mobile clients are hooking up via companies like Google and Amazon, whose cloud allure dwarfs that of IBM. It’s

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• Hands-On, Virtual Training for i Coders and Admins

  July 18, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  Whether you’re looking to learn some new skills or just brush up on techniques, if you’re an IBM i programmer you probably already know that finding hands-on education can be a tricky proposition. If you can find a class, you’ll likely have to travel, which means more time out of the office and away from home, plus the expense of airline tickets, hotel rooms, and rental cars, all of which can make the idea of training pretty unappealing. Pre-recorded Webinars are another option. There’s no traveling, which many people would consider a bonus, but there is also no opportunity for

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• Reader Feedback On Mad Dog 21/21: In Hack Signo Vinces

  July 18, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The opening statement about IBM‘s site being hacked is semi-interesting but has nothing to do with the iSeries. The only people hosting Web sites on the iSeries are us, the iSeries customers, certainly not IBM. The info given is good–never can have enough info about security–but has nothing to do with the hack, or preventing the hack. The IBM i operating system and the PowerPC instruction set eliminate most hack gambits. DB2 usage eliminates another class of gambits based on SQL Server. What’s left is lame Web page programming that allows SQL injection or cross-site scripting, has nothing to

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• Sundry Summer Power Systems Announcements

  July 18, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It’s July and that generally means some sort of Power Systems I/O enhancements or tweaks, and IBM kept to its pattern even if the announcements were not monumental in nature. Back in April, as The Four Hundred previously reported, the high-end Power 795 servers and feature 5803 12X PCI-Express I/O drawer that plugs into it was given a new 177 GB enterprise multi-level cell (eMLC) solid state drive in a small form factor SAS package. In announcement letter 111-132, IBM says this SSD unit, which crams 2.5 times the capacity into a 2.5-inch SAS bay as the 69

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• CEOs and CFOs Pull Rank On CIOs In IT Purchasing Decisions

  July 18, 2011 Dan Burger

  Here’s a report that should be read by those who want the Power Systems IBM i platform to be marketed more effectively. It’s all about delivering the message to where the decisions are being made, which–according to the analysts at Gartner–is increasingly found at the desk of the top financial executive rather than the top IT executive. Gartner surveyed two financial organizations, which certainly skews the results, but even with slightly tarnished revelations the results are noteworthy and perhaps cause for concern because it comes down to who’s driving the IT bus. The contingent with the financial credentials say

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• Microsoft Spends Big Big Bucks On Partner Channel

  July 18, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The old adage that it “takes money to make money” is not any less true in the Internet Age, and those shelling out the biggest bucks to their partner channels seem to be benefiting the most these days. That said, partner programs have to be adopted to the Cloud Epoch, and that is precisely what Microsoft did at its Worldwide Partner Conference 2011 event in Las Vegas last week. The amount of money Microsoft is throwing at its channel is truly astounding: $5.8 billion in its fiscal 2012 year, which started in July. Granted, that money is going to be

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• SAP Wants Oracle’s TomorrowNow Award Cut Way Down

  July 18, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The TomorrowNow saga continued dragging on last week and looked no closer to being a closed matter than it did last November when a jury at trial awarded Oracle a $1.3 billion settlement from SAP for the theft of software patches and other intellectual property relating to third-party support of Oracle’s applications by TomorrowNow. That small company, which SAP shut down in 2008 in the wake of the lawsuit launched by Oracle saying that TomorrowNow was using illegally its own software and documents to provide support to customers, has caused a big headache for SAP, which clearly bought TomorrowNow to

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