Here is something you don’t see every day in the systems business. IBM is getting even better performance out of the new Power8 processors that were launched back in April than it anticipated. Systems performance engineer Alex Mericas, who works in IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, gave a presentation at the Hot Chips 26 conference in Silicon Valley last week, revealing that that the Power8 was delivering a little more oomph than expected.

As The Four Hundred previously reported, IBM revealed a lot of the details around the Power8 chip about a year ago at the Hot Chips 25

Manhattan Associates last week announced it has acquired the assets of GlobalBay Technologies to boost its omni-channel strategy with new “clienteling” capabilities. The deal with VeriFone nets ManH a collection of solutions designed to improve how retailers interact with their customers.

VeriFone’s sold a collection of offerings through its GlobalBay line that would allow smaller retailers to use their iPads to complete transactions. This included hardware like card readers, PIN pads, printers, scanners, and cash drawers. But for ManH, what likely grabbed its attention was the software side of GlobalBay, including offerings like inventory tracking, loyalty programs, and online appointment

Skills keep organizations moving forward. The person who has skills and who can prove it is a hot commodity these days. Professional development is a great investment whether it is a company investing in its IT staff or an individual investing in his or her career. There is a skills gap and you don’t want to be on the wrong side of it, or let that gap get so wide you can’t jump back across.

Let’s take security skills as an example.

Many of you know Robin Tatam, a subject matter expert on security for the COMMON user group who

IBM‘s success depends on its services business, notably cloud services. IBM’s cloud services operations depend on SoftLayer, a hosting company it bought about a year ago. SoftLayer depends on servers from Super Micro Computer, a 20-year-old $1.2 billion-a-year manufacturer based in San Jose, California. During the past year, Supermicro has grown by something like 25 percent. In its third fiscal quarter ended March 31, Supermicro reported significantly increased earnings. IBM is undoubtedly pleased by this. If Supermicro stumbles, SoftLayer will wobble. That, in turn, would send tremors throughout IBM.

It might seem a bit odd for IBM

What might you expect to find at the COMMON Fall Conference, which is coming up October 27 through 29 in Indianapolis? How about college students searching for jobs with companies invested in IBM i? If all goes as planned, there may be 20 or more attending the conference with eyes wide open and expectations set high. IBM i shops, IBM i ISVs, and business partners could use this trip to Indiana as an opportunity for recruitment.

If I may be so bold, let me suggest you make recruitment a priority. Not necessarily because you have an empty chair in the

The new HyperSwap functionality that debuted with IBM i 7.2 left some folks a bit puzzled as to how it fits into the overall high availability stack. Notably, an executive with logical replication software vendor Vision Solutions openly questioned whether HyperSwap furthers the HA and disaster recovery (DR) discussion at all. A Four Hundred Stuff reader weighs in on the issue.

HyperSwap is the new data resilience offering that became available this spring with PowerHA Express Edition. The technology, which IBM has been using in its System z mainframe for years, introduces a synchronous replication method that allows a production

Building revenue growth continues to be a struggle for Agilysys, a developer of enterprise software for the gaming and hospitality markets with large portion of IBM midrange customers. In its most recent financial reporting, the company reported first quarter fiscal 2015 revenue of $23.7 million, which was less than its estimated target of $25.7 million.

Support, maintenance, and subscription revenues brought a 7 percent increase in revenue, however, the transition to subscription-based software and a repositioned sales effort to emphasize new products combined to create a 19 percent decrease in overall product revenue. Proprietary product sales were the primary

It is less than a year before Microsoft pulls the plug on Windows Server 2003. Why should IBM i shops care? Because most of them are Windows shops, too, as it turns out. And many of them are likely running old releases of Windows.

Microsoft is pulling support for Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 in July 2015, and frankly, now is even a little late for a lot of IBM i shops to start planning for the transition to Windows Server 2012, which presumably is the jump that most customers will make. According to Dell, Microsoft

With a few notable exceptions, IBM does not like to make big bang acquisitions. Rather, the company prefers to buy smaller companies that are onto a niche and are poised to grow and could use the help of Big Blue’s 140-country reach and massive salesforce and partner channel. The company has made two such small acquisitions in the security field in recent weeks.

At the end of July, IBM bought a small security software company based in Rome, Italy called Crossideas, which was founded in 2011 and which sells a suite of identity management software called Ideas. The Ideas

After 25-plus years, it might be surprising to some that there are still new things to be learn on the IBM i platform. But to Bill Hansen, president of Manta Technologies, continuing to learn about IBM i is just good business.

Hansen created his first computer-based training courses for IBM systems in 1985, eventually turning his focus to the AS/400 marketplace when he launched Manta in 1994. There are already an impressive 117 courses currently in Manta’s training catalog, but Hansen believes there’s always room for more.

“We always had a rule that first we were going to cover