IBM is getting ready to host its Edge 2013 customer and partner event for big data and cloud in Las Vegas next week, and the word on the street is that a slew of Power Systems announcements are on the way. IBM could not keep all of its powder dry, however, and last week put out a special 25th Anniversary deal for entry IBM i boxes.

The Edge event used to be dedicated to storage, but it has expanded to cover Power Systems, System x, and PureSystems platforms, as well as related systems software for this machinery and, of course,

Technology Refresh number 6 for the IBM i 7.1 operation system, which came out in February with the entry and midrange servers based on the Power7+ processors, still has that new car smell about it. But ahead of some Power Systems announcements due on June 10 and in conjunction with a special silver anniversary promotion for Solution Edition setups, IBM has rolled out updates to TR6. The company also tweaked IBM i licensing and said Power7+ is the last stop for IBM i 6.1.1.

Yes, I know. That is an update of a refresh. Kinda funny, ain’t it? It feels

The day is fast approaching when people who need access to sensitive data will be able to authenticate themselves using biometrics embedded right on their smart phone. Industry experts anticipate Apple to embed a biometric scanner of some sort into the next version of its iPhone. And when it does, the folks at Valid Technologies will gleefully ride Apple’s coattails as it rushes to keep up with orders for its IBM i-based biometric authentication software.

At least that is the hope for Valid, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida. Liberty-loving Americans display a general wariness and resistance to using

Boeing is flying 787 Dreamliners to customers again. The airplanes, which each use two large lithium-ion batteries, were grounded in mid-January because their batteries were dangerously overheating. Battery-powered laptops have been known to catch fire and so, too, have mobile phones, but they still use lithium-ion battery technology. So far, there have been no reported fires in the lithium-ion earpiece batteries of Google Glass gadgets. But even if some people had their hair set afire by a failing Glass, potentially combustible lithium-ion-based energy storage will be the portable power source of choice until a superior successor becomes available.

The

The combined effects of server virtualization, cloud computing, a grumpy global economy, transitions in major server processors, and a shift in form factors for certain kinds of workloads have all combined to make first quarter server sales a little less than they might otherwise be. But, it must be remembered, companies still consumed millions of machines and spent billions of dollars on shiny new iron in the three months ending in March.

By the counting and estimating done by the server geeks at Gartner, the world’s companies consumed some 2.33 million machines of all makes, models, shapes, and sizes

Hosted services, managed service providers, cloud computing . . . some choose not to think about those things at all, while others try to figure out if there is a good business reason to get involved in some way, shape or form.

Last week I spent some time talking with Jim Kandrac, founder and president of United Computer Group (UCG), which is an IBM business partner and IBM i server reseller. Kandrac also pays attention to the IT services business because his company offers backup and recovery as a service to IBM midrange customers with a product called Vault400. Not

A decade ago, online commerce, more commonly known as ebusiness, was more than just a buzz word, it was a game changer. And the successful integration of ebusiness technology would be what determined which companies would survive, and which would get left behind.

Evidence of the pervasiveness of ebusiness is everywhere you look. Even the vendors at your local farmer’s market are armed with their Square, prepared to accept your major credit card to enable you to purchase that carton of fresh strawberries.

Today the game is changing again, and IBM is advising companies to invest in social business.

Any organization that has been around long enough to grow into a business has investments in equipment that can be described by the word legacy. The question that many struggle to answer is how to take what you have and turn it into what you need. In the IBM i community, we hear the term modernization being used a lot, particularly when it comes to applications. Old applications rarely are as efficient as new ones. They can be difficult to use and limited in what they can do.

If you’ve heard or read comments by IBM i chief architect Steve

Every time the Jack Henry & Associates comes around on the news cycle, it is amazing that no one has tried to acquire the banking software and services provider. It has been on a very long winning streak of pushing up revenues and extracting profits at an even faster rate.

In its third quarter of fiscal 2013 ended in March, Jack Henry boasted sales up 10 percent to $281.5 million. Net income was up 25 percent to just a hair under $46 million, which means the company brought 16.3 percent of sales to the bottom line. That is really not

Prices on the AIX variant of Unix from IBM and the PowerVM server virtualization hypervisor that is used to slice up Power Systems iron so it can run multiple copies of AIX, IBM i, or Linux have been tweaked.

In announcement letter 313-045, IBM says prices on AIX and PowerVM have been both raised and lowered, depending on the feature and edition. As usual, it is very tough sorting out what the product feature codes mean in these price changes, but I took a whack at it:

The price changes took effect on May 28. The only reason I