• Infor CEO Throws Down on ERP Competitors with New SoHo UI

  May 7, 2013 Alex Woodie

  ERP software has never been “cool” or “fun” to use. But if Infor CEO Charles Phillips had his way, enterprise software would be as enjoyable to use as the latest social networking tools from Facebook and Twitter. SoHo is the name of the new HTML5-based user interface that Infor is adopting across its various enterprise applications, including its premiere IBM i-based products. We gave you the lowdown SoHo, which was unveiled last month at Inforum 2013, in the story “Infor Exudes Total Confidence at Annual User Confab” in yesterday’s The Four Hundred. What was clear from Phillips’ comments

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• SQL Protection: Grief Relief from ProData

  May 7, 2013 Dan Burger

  More and more people are talking about using SQL. The number of classes at conferences continues to rise and the interest level remains on an upward swing. Along with that comes an interest in monitoring and evaluating SQL environments. ProData Computer Services recognized this need, and the result was a product called SQL Audit, which was announced at the COMMON Annual Meeting and Exposition last month in Austin, Texas. SQL Audit tracks and monitors modifications made to any IBM i database, whether the modifications are made using ProData’s SQL/Pro or DBU, as well as IBM‘s standard SQL functions. All

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• That Old AS/400 Gets Some Love at Inforum 2013

  May 7, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Infor is arguably the biggest provider of business applications for the IBM i server (formerly AS/400), so it was good to see the old black box getting some love and respect at Infor’s recent user conference, Inforum 2013, held in late April in Orlando, Florida–even if most of the love and respect was coming from customers, and not Infor. It’s tough to tell exactly how many of Infor’s customers run their applications on the IBM i platform, in large part because Infor’s IBM i products are spread out across different divisions. Robert Russell, the vice president in charge of development

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• IBM i Skill Building At The OCEAN

  May 6, 2013 Dan Burger

  Each summer, IBM midrange shops in Southern California mark the date on their calendars when the OCEAN User Group Tech Conference will be held. This year it is on Friday, July 19. For some shops, this training and education opportunity is exactly what’s needed: convenient and cost effective. This year there are a total of six educational tracks and 30 sessions that include topics such as: power programming, Web programming, mobile and Web applications, infrastructure, SQL and DB2, IBM i modernization, and new technology. The subject matter experts who are leading these sessions are among the best and brightest in

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• IBM Announces More Share Buybacks, Higher Dividends

  May 6, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  If you’re an IBM shareholder in need of some fast cash, we have some good news for you. IBM announced it has boosted its dividend 12 percent and approved $5 billion in stock buybacks at its annual meeting last week. The dividend of 95 cents a share will be payable on June 10 to shareholders of record on May 10. With the approval of the additional funds, IBM now has $11.2 billion in its repurchase program, which is enough to repurchase about 5.6 percent of its overall share count on Wall Street. Whether or not this is good news for

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• Avnet Systems Biz Is A Little Soft In Fiscal Q3

  May 6, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The first three months of 2013 were choppy for a lot of IT suppliers and distributors, and the situation was no different for master electronics components and IT distributor Avnet. The box pusher saw a bit of a budget flush in the fourth quarter of 2012, which was the second quarter of its fiscal 2013 year, but no such luck this time around with the U.S. government unsure of what it is going to spend once we get put beyond September this year and general skittishness in China and parts of Europe. In the quarter ended March 30, Avnet’s

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• The IBM i 500

  May 6, 2013 Dan Burger

  What can an electronic data interchange (EDI) software company tell you about the IBM i installed base? EXTOL International has 500 IBM midrange shops using its software that range from $25 million a year small to midsize businesses up to $21 billion a year enterprises. Each year it adds about two dozen new customers running its software on IBM i on Power Systems. EXTOL’s software does not run exclusively on IBM i, but the platform is an important aspect of the company’s business. Electronic data interchange allows the computer systems and networks of business partners to transfer data–typically related to

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• COMMON Europe Opens Up 2013 Top Concerns Survey

  May 6, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you have a bone to pick with IBM or just a helpful suggestion on how it might improve the Power Systems platform running the IBM i operating systems, now is your chance to do something about it. For the past seven years, COMMON Europe has done its part to poll the IBM i user base and try to figure out what they are worried about. And now the eighth annual Top Concerns survey is open for you to speak your mind and help shape the future of this platform upon which we all make our livings. (Or at least

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• SAN Sightings At IBM i Shops On The Rise

  May 6, 2013 Dan Burger

  The idea of using a storage area network to increase storage capacity utilization has not exactly set the IBM i world on fire, but stringing together multiple servers and consolidating the storage space of each is finding its way into more IBM midrange shops than you might realize. I recently spoke with a couple of storage experts who believe SAN awareness is on the rise. The first is Ed Ahl, director of IBM business for Tributary Systems, a developer of storage virtualization software for IBM i and mainframe environments. The second is Tom Grigoleit, systems engineer at Meridian Group

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Think Or Quit

  May 6, 2013 Hesh Wiener

  Ginni Rometty has to think or quit. And I don’t expect her to quit. IBM‘s revenue peaked in 2011, the year Rometty became the company’s president, replacing Sam Palmisano. While she wasn’t the boss when Big Blue’s all defining policies were put into place, Rometty had been a top executive since 2009 and an IBM employee since 1991. So, while only recently at the tiller, she could hardly be surprised at the company’s course. It is doubtful, however, that she anticipated the consequences of IBM’s strategic decisions, including her own, or the harshness of the prolonged economic winter. Now

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