• A Cloud Falls Over The U.S. Open

  September 9, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  Tennis fans might think of clouds as being a bad omen. Rain delays can put a quick stop to the action on the court. But clouds mean something different to those of us in computing circles, and fans of this year’s U.S. Open Championships might be surprised to learn that clouds actually had a big hand in creating a better tennis experience. The USTA has been partnering with IBM for more than 20 years, and in that time the technology has changed a lot. Today’s tech savvy fan, whether part of the 700,000 crowded into the USTA National Tennis Center

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• Servers Sales Swoon A Little From April Through June

  September 9, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With so many transitions going on in the server racket these days, it is hard to say if the ups and downs of revenues for each quarter are a leading indicator for the overall IT market anymore. But a lot of people believe server sales do portend future budgets in data centers, and so when the numbers head south, as they did again in the June quarter according to IDC, people take notice. It is best to keep perspective. There is a lot going on in Server Land, to say the least. And the pace of change is not

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• IBM Re-Emphasizes Software And Services To The Channel

  September 9, 2013 Dan Burger

  In his keynote address at the Avnet and IBM Executive Directions meeting last month, Steve Mills told a roomful of folks in the sales channel that their greatest opportunities for future success would be in software and services. That’s not a new tune the general manager in charge of the converged Software and Systems Group was singing, but in this business setting where hardware sales is the sentimental favorite, Mills would like to make sure the choir is singing his song. Mills carefully built a bridge that connected the old reseller sales approach that led with hardware sales by saying

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• As I See It: Motivate This

  September 9, 2013 Victor Rozek

  I’m about a week away from heading up to Banff and Jasper for a little mountain madness and, as departure time draws near, my motivation to work is draining faster than sinuses under a pollen attack. Like God, motivation is a universal concept, individually applied. With the exception of survival, few, if any, motivators can guarantee to consistently move the productivity needle. And those that do, won’t necessarily do so for long. For people who have already achieved a comfortable baseline and don’t aspire to piggish levels of consumption, motivation is like the tide–it comes and goes. Mine was waning

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• SaaS HR And Payroll Powered By i Proves Popular

  September 9, 2013 Dan Burger

  Making the choice to deliver its human resources and payroll application in the software as a service (SaaS) package was a gamble for NorthgateArinso (NGA), but the idea has fit the bill for thousands of companies that are attracted by the software features and the SaaS subscription-based replacement for software licensing. Most of these companies have no idea the software runs on the IBM Power7 hardware and the IBM i platform, but it has worked out well for NGA. Renting rather than buying mission-critical applications is still pretty rare in the IBM midrange community, but it is not the IBM

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• Databorough Snapped Up By Fresche Legacy

  September 9, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Databorough, the UK-based developer of application and database analysis and migration tools for IBM i, has been acquired by Fresche Legacy, a Canadian company devoted to helping customers modernize or migrate their legacy applications. The resulting company seeks to create a “powerhouse” in the field of IBM i application modernization. Fresche Legacy was formed in March 2012 when Speedware bought a collection RPG migration tools from the German company Sykora and took the fresh new name. Today, the Montreal, Quebec, company has hundreds of modernization, migration, and consulting jobs under its belt, including three IBM i engagements that

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• Power8 Processor Packs A Twelve-Core Punch–And Then Some

  September 9, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Well, IBM i shops hankering for some more processing oomph, Big Blue has a very big jump in performance coming your way with the future Power8 processors. Just after The Four Hundred went on vacation at the end of August, the techies who designed the Power8 chip took the podium at the Hot Chips conference, hosted by the IEEE every summer for the past 25 years at Stanford University, and revealed the major aspects of the design of the successor to the current Power7 and Power7+ processors. As I was watching the presentation by Jeff Stuecheli, chief nest architect for

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• Key Information Systems Buys Cloud And Co-Location Biz

  August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Long-time IBM i platform reseller and system integrator Key Information Systems is going into the data center co-location, connectivity, and cloud computing businesses after acquiring ISWest, a data center operator located in its neck of Southern California. Key Info did not disclose the financial details of the acquisition, but Leif Morin, the company’s president, tells The Four Hundred that the opportunity to acquire the assets of ISWest and take on its team of data center operations experts was too good to pass up. Key has 55 employees and generates around $55 million per year from its reseller and consulting

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• Manta Is Listening To Your IBM i Training Needs

  August 26, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  If you’re looking for IBM i specific training, one of the people you’ll want to talk to is Bill Hansen, president of Manta Technologies. He’s the right person to go to not just because he’s been in the training industry since the 1980s, but because he’ll listen. Hansen has made a business of creating the training courses that people want. Just last year, he introduced a COBOL training series for programming students, which his customers had been telling him was at the top of their wish lists. Since then, he has been rolling out additional courses, and has just

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• IBM To Host Cloud Summit For ISVs and MSPs In Rochester

  August 26, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Big Blue is looking to get managed service providers who are building infrastructure clouds based on the IBM i platform together with independent software vendors who want to run their wares in the cloud together at a IBM i Cloud Summit held in Rochester, Minnesota. The event, which will run on October 2 and 3, will be free of charge to MSPs and ISVs that want to attend, but they will have to cover their own travel and lodging costs, says Ian Jarman, the long-time IBM i product manager who is now business unit executive for Lab Services in the

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