Like many of you, I think New Year’s resolutions are suspect. While I think it is perfectly reasonable to stop and contemplate everything you have done and everything that you have yet to do after a certain period–the time it takes the Earth to make one circuit around the Sun is as good as any–I know enough about human nature to know that people do the best they can under the circumstances and that this often falls far short of the ideal. This is a good thing, I think, because the perfect can become the enemy of the good enough

Townsend Security is unveiling a new security solution that enables two-factor authentication (2FA) on the IBM i platform. The offering requires users to properly enter a PIN code, sent via a mobile text or an automated voice call, before being allowed on the system. Alliance Two Factor Authentication will help companies defend themselves against privilege escalation attacks that are currently comprising otherwise secure IBM i systems, says company founder Patrick Townsend.

The growing technological sophistication of cybercriminals is forcing organizations to step up their security games to prevent falling victims to the digital marauders. The advent of keyloggers and other

The IBM Power Systems portfolio covers a lot of territory. Where the IBM i portion of that very large ecosystem fits into the puzzle is often questioned, particularly when it comes to sales and marketing efforts. IBM i roadmaps are used to explain commitments to the platform and Technology Refreshes are examples of IBM investments. Growth of the platform depends on independent software vendor (ISV) solutions, where IBM investments in co-marketing activities are fuel that fills the sales gas tank.

Pumping that juice is Terri Virnig, vice president of Power ecosystem and strategy. She has responsibility for all aspects of

If you’re a mouse but aspire to grow into something as large as an elephant, evolution may oblige you, but it will take about 24 million generations–give or take a mass extinction. But there are faster ways. You could become a government program. Conceived through the biological mastery uniquely resident in the U.S. Congress, a mouse built to government specifications instantly becomes an elephant. Just add money.

Thus we have the grotesque specter of Obamacare. All 1,990 pages of it. Neither fish nor fowl, it crawled out of the primordial ooze of the healthcare lobby, a fully formed pachyderm. But

It looks like Big Blue is going to get the jump on its server competitors in previewing its next generation of flash-enhanced servers based on Intel‘s Xeon processors. IBM has an announcement scheduled for January 16 that will include the top brass from its System x, PureFlex, BladeCenter, and Flash Systems business units, but don’t be fooled. Anything IBM does for System x it will eventually do for Power Systems.

As it has been doing for the past several years, IBM will be hosting a webcast to launch its new systems and their flashy storage, and you can sign

Timothy,

Merry Christmas and best wishes to you and your staff. I can’t tell you how much we enjoy your analysis and the thoughtful articles you, Dan, and Alex write. IBM should create a Media BP class and invest some co-op marketing funds in you given what you do to educate people about IBM Power Systems.

I want to make a couple additional points in reference to your article, All Your IBM i Base Are Belong To Us.

Lately, we’ve seen a steady trickle of small customers who have been running old software on old boxes, transferring their entire

Big Blue wants its analytics business to grow to $20 billion by the end of 2015, and it wants its Watson question-answer machine to do more to help the company make those numbers. And so, last week in New York, Big Blue created a new business unit, called the Watson Group, to further commercialize the technologies that are at the heart of the Jeopardy! playing system.

IBM has been working with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, WellPoint, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, and Elsevier on various uses of the Watson expert system in the medical field. Sloan Kettering is

Ted Holt, senior technical editor of the “Four Hundred Guru” newsletter published by IT Jungle has been selected to the cadre of speakers lined up for the next RPG & DB2 Summit, which will take place March 18 – 20, in Grapevine, Texas. Holt joins a group of instructors that includes Jon Paris, Susan Gantner, Paul Tuohy, Scott Klement, Aaron Bartell, Mike Pavlak, Mike Cain, Tom McKinley, and Barbara Morris. Paris, Gantner, and Tuohy are the proprietors of System i Developer, the training and education organization that stages the twice annual Summit conferences.

Holt has been on the

How’s that IT budget for 2014 coming along? Got that executive seal of approval, or are you still noodling revision number 13? Most budgets in the IBM midrange will likely remain flapjack flat compared to a year ago, but overall worldwide IT spending is predicted to pick up speed. According to the analysts at Gartner, IT spending will tiptoe upward at a 3.1 percent pace reaching a projected total of $3.8 trillion in 2014.

One of the expected economic drivers will be enterprise software led by customer relationship management (CRM), a marketing and sales department favorite, and supply chain

Blame the bad weather that blanketed much of the country in December. Last Friday, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy only added 74,000 net new jobs, which is a lot less workers than is needed to be hired for the unemployment rate to come down and, more importantly, is needed to get people who have long since stopped working getting a paycheck again.

According to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people who were unemployed in the United States went down by 490,000 to 10.4 million in December, which should be