• IBM Carves Out Watson Business Headquartered In The Big Apple

  January 13, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  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

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• Reader Feedback On All Your IBM i Base Are Belong To Us

  January 13, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  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

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• IBM Preps Flashy Servers For January Launch

  January 13, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  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

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• As I See It: ITCare

  January 13, 2014 Victor Rozek

  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

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• Finding The i In The Power Ecosystem And Strategy

  January 13, 2014 Dan Burger

  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

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• Townsend Launches 2FA To Thwart Cyber Attacks On IBM i

  January 13, 2014 Alex Woodie

  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

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• New Year’s High Def, Most Def

  January 13, 2014 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  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

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• Coming Soon: Connect 2014 (a.k.a. Lotusphere)

  December 16, 2013 Dan Burger

  The IBM Connect 2014 conference is coming up next month January 26-30 in Orlando, Florida. For many years this conference was known as Lotusphere, but that changed last year shortly after IBM dropped the Lotus brand. Although the name of the event has changed, the emphasis remains the same. This is all about collaborative software, with a big dose of social media, plus mobile and cloud computing. Less publicized but still a significant portion of the event is geared toward Notes/Domino development skills, certification testing, and product roadmap insights that include the business partners as well as IBM. Traditionally, Lotusphere

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• IBM Inks $115 Million Flex System Deal With EU

  December 16, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I have been saying for a while that anything that helps the Power Systems line get stronger helps the IBM i platform live longer. I have a new phrase for you. Anything that helps the Flex Systems converged boxes sell helps IBM i as well. With IBM putting money and mouth behind its Flex Systems platform, and Big Blue needing to stay in the X86 system racket to be a relevant system supplier, all of IBM’s customers need for the Flex Systems to compete and win deals in the market. It is with this in mind that we tell you

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• Quarterly Server Sales Drop Nearly 4 Percent, IDC Says

  December 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Continued soft demand for servers around the world resulted in a 3.7 percent decline in sales during the third quarter, according to IDC. A poor showing by IBM, which suffered a 19.4 percent decline in factory revenues during the quarter, enabled Hewlett-Packard to regain the title as the world’s top server maker. This year has been tough on server makers, as they struggle to maintain revenues in an extremely competitive market for the commodity X86 servers that dominate the server landscape. Strong demand for low-end X86 servers actually increased year-over-year sales of these types of systems by 3.5

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