• Knocking On Doors And Talking About Cloud

  November 3, 2014 Dan Burger

  It’s not quite like walking through destiny’s door, but Patrick Schutz believes he’s in the right neighborhood. Surveying the situation, Schutz confidently predicts that cloud computing is exactly what many IBM midrange shops want. They’ve just needed some time get comfortable with the idea. According to Schutz, senior account executive at Abacus Solutions, an IBM i and Power Systems oriented managed service provider (MSP), the conversations about infrastructure as a service business have changed from if to when. “In the past year, we have seen more interest and desire,” Schutz says with regard to Abacus’ interaction with the IBM

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• As I See It: The Author As Infant

  November 3, 2014 Victor Rozek

  Vladimir Putin is flexing. Testing air defenses here, coastal defenses there, reminding the world of Russia’s nuclear prowess, and implying his willingness to engage in World War III. And he’s just petulant enough to do it. Oorahsky! Meanwhile, China is bullying its helpless neighbors, gobbling up additional resources and territory to support its voracious appetites. These are serious stories that deserve my attention and concern, but the Internet offers too many distractions, and the pull of entertainment is strong. I’m scrolling down Yahoo’s home page and in seconds my attention is highjacked by World Series coverage, college football highlights, lava

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• Any Place For IBM i In The OpenPower Clan?

  November 3, 2014 Dan Burger

  The connection between the OpenPower Alliance and IBM i is more indirect than direct, but do not miscalculate the significance of OpenPower, IBM‘s most critical, most ambitious, and most risky strategic move of the 21st century. Although this is all about scale out Linux, the cloud market, and attacking Intel, the IBM i community should be watching closely. It is a business model shift for the Power brand. From a hardware perspective, this is a trip to another galaxy. The catch phrase “Making the Power tide go up raises all boats” is embedded in the conversations of Systems

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• Startup Looks To Take the Pain Out Of HA Testing

  November 3, 2014 Alex Woodie

  One of the big issues with IBM i high availability is the lack of testing by the users. The problem is, without regular testing, the chances of a successfully completing a real failover when it counts are slim to none. Last week, a Florida startup called Focal Point Solutions Group unveiled a hosted high availability offering called DR FlashCopy that uses an innovative approach to allowing customers test their HA environments at their leisure. “I hate to say it but the majority of high availability customers haven’t done a switch in several years,” says Ron Venzin, the CEO of Focal

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• IBM Will Fill The Hole In The Power8 Line

  November 3, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The Power8 rollout has seen entry machines with one and two sockets, the so-called scale-out Power S-class machines. And IBM has just condensed the enterprise-class Power 770 and Power 780 machines with the high-end Power 795 to come up with the new scale-up or enterprise Power E-Class machines using the Power8 chips. But there is a pretty big hole in the middle between these two classes of machines, and one that IBM knows it has to fill before too long. And the word from on high is that IBM will, indeed, fill the gap between the entry and enterprise class.

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• IBM Offers Zero Percent Leasing On Power7+, Power8 Iron

  October 27, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are looking to get a shiny new Power Systems machine running the current or most recent past generation of Power processors and supporting IBM i, AIX, or Linux workloads, then the Global Financing unit of IBM has a deal for you. It is a simple 24-month, zero percent financing deal that an elementary school student can understand. As you can see in this announcement, the deal is dirt simple. You take the cost of selected configurations of Power7+ or Power8 systems, divide by 24, and pay IBM that much every month for the iron. IBM acts as

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• Baker College Moves IBM i Classes Online

  October 27, 2014 Dan Burger

  Baker College has transitioned all of its IBM i-related courses from the classrooms of its multiple campuses to online. The Michigan-based school offers courses in RPG, CL, database, and enterprise architecture, among others that are Power Systems related such as Linux and AIX. The online classes are open to anyone, whether they are enrolled at Baker College in a degree program or are interested in a single class. Michael Picerno, dean of information systems, oversees the IBM midrange computing curriculum. “The administration at Baker determined that on-premise classes with small enrollments be taken online,” Picerno says while noting other changes.

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• Double-Digit License Revenue Growth Continues for Manhattan Associates

  October 27, 2014 Dan Burger

  Retail supply chain powerhouse Manhattan Associates continues to perform well as demonstrated by its Q3 financial report showing a revenue gain of $17.8 million (14 percent) and a license revenue increase of $2.1 million (12 percent) based on comparisons with Q2. License revenue, however, fell below $17 million, after three consecutive quarters above that mark. For the nine months of 2014, license revenue was $52 million, which compares to $45.1 million for the same nine-month period in 2013. Total revenue for the first three quarters of 2014 increased from $306.9 million to $361.7 million. License revenue from net new customers

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• The Age of Frustration

  October 27, 2014 Dan Burger

  It’s frustrating at the very least. And aggravating, too. People talk about aligning business objectives and IT capabilities, but the distance between talking and doing seldom leads to the same destination. There’s clearly more than one common denominator that steers these projects into the ditch. But inadequate project management is many times the villain. Most attack this as a people problem. That’s certainly a good place to start looking around, but it can also be a lack of tools issue. That’s worth a closer look as well. Businesses change. If it’s handled properly, we call it evolution. If it’s sudden

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• Proprietary Systems See Growth At Avnet

  October 27, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The large distributors of systems, storage, networking, and related systems software are perhaps a better barometer of what is going on out there in the enterprise than IBM these days, and that is one of the reasons why The Four Hundred watches very carefully how these companies are doing every quarter. The good news is that Avnet is doing a lot better than Big Blue in the past quarter. And its server business, for both proprietary and X86 machines, is growing. In the 13 weeks ended in September, Avnet’s overall revenues rose by 7.8 percent to $6.84 billion and net

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