TFH Volume: 28 Issue: 78 Archives

Scaling Up For Cyber Monday With IBM i

November 26, 2018 Alex Woodie

A fulfillment company that’s expected to process millions of transactions on an IBM i server today will lean heavily on a slim layer of RPG-based Web services technology to keep the commerce flowing for its large clients. But there’s nothing stopping the middleware, dubbed iWebSrv, from simplifying data integration for clients in other industries.

Retailers work all year to ensure they’re ready for the massive surge of traffic that springs up after Thanksgiving. For bricks-and-mortar types, Black Friday is their make-or-break day, while those with an omni-channel bent have Cyber Monday prominently circled on their calendars.

Consumers are expected to …
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Japan Is A Different IBM i Market, But The Loyalty Is The Same

November 26, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in early November, we did an overview of the IBM i market in Japan, which accounts for about 10 percent of the IBM i installed base and is third to North America and Europe, which have always dominated the AS/400 and follow-on IBM midrange markets.

In this follow-up story, we wanted to dig a little deeper and talked to two downstream resellers, Bell Data (which is a publishing partner of The Four Hundred in Japan) and Star Computer, which is a downstream partner from iGuazu, the largest distributor of Power Systems with IBM i machinery in the country. …
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Guru: When Is An Error Not An Error?

November 26, 2018 Jon Paris

When is an error not an error? When it is expected! In this article I want to discuss the use of RPG’s MONITOR op-code and discuss ways in which it might change the way you code RPG. I was prompted to write up my thoughts on this subject as a result of being quizzed by students at a recent RPG & DB2 Summit as to why I was using Monitor blocks rather than more conventional RPG techniques in my examples.

So what do I mean by expected? Basically I mean those errors that you know are going to happen …
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Mad Dog 21/21: Where Icarus Is Bliss

November 26, 2018 Hesh Wiener

IBM got a lot of public attention in 2011 when its Watson system beat two outstanding human competitors at the widely televised quiz game Jeopardy. Since then IBM’s revenue has declined by about 25 percent and its profits have fallen even more dramatically, although intake did improve during three of the most recent four quarters. Regardless, IBM’s Watson project didn’t translate into a big boost to its financial returns, neither in new activities nor by reinvigorating legacy businesses. Seven years after the event, the company’s Jeopardy coup, however memorable, has failed to add significant value. What went wrong?

IBM …
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Gartner Shaves 2018 And 2019 IT Spending Projections

November 26, 2018 Timothy Prickett Morgan

There are a lot of different pressures in the 185 countries that comprise most of the economic activity on Earth, and there is no shortage of uncertainty out there. But two things are always constant here in the late 20th century and the early 21st century. The first is that uncertainty is always there, even though it gets more or less volatile from time to time. And the other is that companies will continue to invest in hardware, software, services, and telecom services.

They have no choice, living in the future as we do.

The prognosticators at Gartner have taken …
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Scaling Up For Cyber Monday With IBM i

Japan Is A Different IBM i Market, But The Loyalty Is The Same

Guru: When Is An Error Not An Error?

Mad Dog 21/21: Where Icarus Is Bliss

Gartner Shaves 2018 And 2019 IT Spending Projections

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