• Thanks For The (Higher Priced) Memories?

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM likes to talk sometimes about the convergence of the System i product line (running what was then i5/OS) and the System p product line as a relatively recent development, and dates the official name change to Power Systems back in April 2008. But we have longer memories than that here at The Four Hundred and we know that the first converged server was actually a “Northstar” server that came out in 1997 and that the convergence plans date from before then. I have nothing against convergence, even though I have been annoyed over the past decade and a half

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• Watson Gets Schooled By College Students And Professors

  October 29, 2012 Jenny Thomas

  We all know IBM‘s Watson Q&A machine’s claim to fame is its 2011 debut on the TV game show Jeopardy! But just because Watson became a household name for stomping its human competitors into the ground with its superior intellect (well, data retrieval speed) doesn’t mean Watson can’t benefit from some good old-fashioned brain power. You see, Watson was not built to entertain the masses and humiliate trivia champions. Its computing abilities allow Watson to cull through vast amounts of big data and process information in ways that mimic the human brain while understanding natural language and at least

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• IBM i Innovators Rise And Shine

  October 29, 2012 Dan Burger

  Is the IBM i a modern system or not? There certainly are progressive companies and talented people accomplishing extremely innovative business solutions using this frequently maligned platform. The key word here is “innovative.” Each year at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition there are awards presented to organizations that are proving this platform is as modern as systems perceived to be more modern. There has always been prestige associated with companies that are technologically advanced and that has never been more true than it is today. An innovation award doesn’t just sit on the president’s credenza. It’s worth its weight

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• SAP Powers Shakes Off World’s Economic Jitters In The Third Quarter

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  German application software giant SAP has had its share of technical, financial, and legal woes in recent years. But the company was firing on all cylinders in the third quarter ended in September. Hopefully SAP is a better bellwether for the IT economy than the server racket, which took a bit of a pause as September got rolling, as recent financials from Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, IBM, and Avnet show. In the third quarter, SAP’s revenues rose by 16 percent to €3.95 billion. In the year ago period, SAP had stopped the bulk of its litigation with

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• Arrow Empowers Partners To Peddle Converged Systems, Eats Another IT Recycler

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It would be a good thing for IBM to be able to have the full focus of a master distributor such as Arrow Electronics when it introduces a new technology such as the PureFlex modular systems. But the master distributors are just that: The main conduits that buffer the server makers from the capriciousness of the IT buyers and lets them all get product into a vast distribution channel and essentially outsource the sales job to all but the largest accounts. In exchange for that service, companies like IBM have to share the attentions of Arrow and give them the

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• Cisco: Data Center Traffic To Quadruple Thanks To Clouds

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It looks like you are probably going to join the 10 Gigabit Ethernet wave in your data center, and it looks like increasingly cloudy applications, which cut across servers in distributed architectures, are going to be the force driving you to upgrade your network. That’s the prognosis from networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems, which obviously has a vested interest in seeing network traffic and greenfield cloudy server installations take off. The analysts at Cisco have taken a sample of data center traffic inside 10 midrange and large data centers, with a mix of public and private data

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• Gartner Says Big Data Getting Bigger, Skills Lag

  October 29, 2012 Dan Burger

  It’s a mighty big shadow that Big Data casts. As is the nature of shadows, their size has a lot to do with the source of the light. Last week Gartner was the source, and reports were published from one end of the media galaxy to the other concerning the firm’s predictions for the future of IT. Big Data loomed large and predictions were appropriately big with forecasts for increasing bigness. The question this begs is: Who’s prepared for this? Anyone who has not already been handling Big Data (the capitalization makes it even bigger, don’t you think?) can take

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• As I See It: Born Again Computers

  October 29, 2012 Victor Rozek

  Small business start-ups have a notoriously short half-life. And non-profits are even less likely to thrive. With the ascendency of Wall Street-style greed, doing good fell out of fashion, and packing a conscience became regarded as more hindrance than help. But in an era when those most blessed by fortune have backed away from communal responsibility, it is still possible for empathy to bind with hard work and create an enterprise that is both successful and honorable. One such enterprise not only provides a valuable service but, within its sphere of influence, is also addressing stubborn social challenges and a

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• Server Sales Hiccup Stalls Avnet In September Quarter, December Sobering Up

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  System and component sales at master reseller Avnet took a pause in the fiscal quarter ended in September, catching the company’s top brass a bit unawares as the declines were larger than expected. You can blame the U.S. presidential election and the uncertainty surrounding that as well as the uncertainty in certain debt-laden countries in Europe, if that makes you feel better. IBM had some software sales slip in the third quarter in its emerging markets that made its numbers worse than expected, as The Four Hundred previously reported, but at the same time Big Blue’s System x, Power

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• Knowledge Is Power When Assessing Your IBM i Legacy

  October 29, 2012 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i platform can be both a blessing and a curse to you, the IBM i customer. While its integrated nature and reliability insulates you from tasks and expenses commonly faced by users of mainstream platforms, the “black box” and its longevity also tends to mask problems that may be lurking in your RPG code. So it’s not surprising that when you evaluate how to modernize your IT system, the lack of visibility into the inner workings of your system can lead to fear, panic, and, ultimately, uninformed decisions. It is interesting to note how the IBM i platform’s

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