• IBM i Shops Can’t Help But Look At Linux

  April 13, 2015 Dan Burger

  What’s it going to take to get IBM midrange shops interested in running Linux on their Power Systems boxes? The references to better resiliency, better security, and better virtual machine density, (the capability to run more virtual machines on Power) are all well and good, but that alone won’t get it done. It won’t turn the tide, which is heavily in favor of running Linux on X86. Working with the ISV community and continuing to build Linux awareness is part of the strategy. Linux has become a much bigger deal in the enterprise space than is widely recognized by people

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• Has Cloud ERP Reached a Tipping Point?

  April 13, 2015 Alex Woodie

  For years, we’ve been told that most server workloads will eventually move to the cloud because of the economies of scale advantages that it brings. So far, the big daddy of corporate computing–the centralized Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) suite–has mostly resisted the cloud. But according to Nucleus Research, ERP is now finally succumbing to the siren call of cloud computing. We have reached a tipping point with cloud ERP, according to Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research for Nucleus. “A lot of companies are getting to the point where their next ERP upgrade is almost a re-implementation, so they’re

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• Cozzi Refines Data-Centric Ideas For IBM i Report Writer

  April 13, 2015 Dan Burger

  When IBM invests in IBM i, the database is first in line. In terms of “people hours” nothing comes close to the work being done on the database. When new versions of the operating system arrive, it’s the database that gets the greatest number of enhancements. Same with the Technology Refreshes, in almost all cases. Members of the ISV community and the Large User Group of top Power Systems companies are usually quick to take advantage, but there’s a bigger picture. The power of SQL and data-centric programming is gaining IBM i converts, maybe more so now than at any

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• IBM Offers Deep Discounts On Power-Linux Down Under

  April 13, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM wants to sell a lot of Power8 iron running the Linux operating system Down Under, and it wants to do it fast. Like before the end of the second quarter, which comes to a close in June. To that end, IBM New Zealand and IBM Australia have kicked out some pretty steeply discounted iron that is sure to get the attention of prospective buyers–maybe even those who might otherwise opt for Linux on X86 machinery. Under the deal announced in Australia last week in announcement letter ZA2Z5260A, IBM is giving discounts on eight different configurations of the Power

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• Reader Feedback On Crazy Idea #483: A Leveraged Buyout Of IBM i

  April 13, 2015 Hey, TPM

  We’ve been sitting at least in the same church, if not in the same pew. Terrific article on the sellout of IBM i to private equity. I would make a couple of observations: While it seems remarkably obvious, there is real information in the sentence “of course you know that private equity is only buying you with your own money” as spoken by one of my friends in the business who did sell out to PE, successfully. If there is a deal to be struck, it seems to me you are in a wonderful position to broker the deal, given

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• Gimme, Gimme, Gimme! More Services And Global Variables Available For DB2 for i

  April 7, 2015 Michael Sansoterra

  To satiate the insatiable among us, IBM continues to provide new ways for DB2 for i SQL developers and database administrators to programmatically interrogate and interact with their operating environment through the use of “services” and global variables. New “Services” Views The IBM DB2 for i Services have been a great boon to developers and administrators because they give access to information about the IBM i OS environment via the simplicity of SQL. For a brief intro to services, see my article Make Your DB2 For i Apps Environment Aware. There are several new “services” available as of IBM

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• A Fastpath To Open A Specific Member In RSE

  April 7, 2015 Susan Gantner

  One of the first tips I ever wrote for Four Hundred Guru was about keyboard shortcuts for RSE. It was written so long ago, I was talking about WDSC. None of the Rational variants of the product name had come to be at that time. It even predates my downloadable cheat sheet for My Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts for RSE. As you can see if you look at the cheat sheet, I’ve added a lot more favorites since the original article. The shortcuts in those original tips still work with the recent Rational versions of RSE with one exception.

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• IBM i Toolkit for Ruby, iit For Short

  April 7, 2015 Aaron Bartell

  What if I told you that the best developers in the world are available to work on your next project? What if I told you that they will work for free? Well, they are and they will. In the following paragraphs, I tell you why and how. The best developers in the world will help you with your projects, for free, because of the magic of open source. Open source efforts have to rank right up there on the list of abnormalities of the human race. Why? Because so much is given away at high cost (time, which in turn

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• Crazy Idea #483: A Leveraged Buyout Of IBM i

  April 6, 2015 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Sometimes the crazy ideas come from us, sometimes they come from you. Sometimes we are all pondering the possibilities at the same time and it seems like an idea is almost a meme, spreading like a virus, hopping from brain to brain, or as I sometimes suspect might be possible, vibrating in the cosmic ether for others to reflect on if they can only hear the image. Whatever scenario this one is, a bunch of you have reached out and asked me to write about the possibilities of a leveraged buyout of the IBM i business. And so, here we

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• IBM i ERP Vendor Finds Success With SaaS

  April 6, 2015 Dan Burger

  As a topic of discussion, software pricing is an incendiary device. But a flame without fuel goes out quickly. And for a lot of companies, status quo means no open flames and don’t even think about throwing that wood on the fire. There’s another term for status quo. It’s called complacency. The opposite of complacency is not change; it’s investigate. In terms of software, that means taking a look at software as a service. Software licensing, support, and maintenance costs can be pretty steep, particularly the up-front licensing charges, which are often a point of fixation for customers. There’s a

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