• New BVS Tools Hook IBM i to Google Apps

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  BVS Tools has rolled out a collection of new software called GreenTools for Google Apps (G4G) that enable users to connect various Google Apps with data and applications residing on IBM i servers. Two G4G apps, including G4GGCP and G4GGCAL, connect IBM i data with Google Cloud Print and Google Calendars through Google’s APIs, and more apps are on the way. Today’s IT environments have become extremely heterogeneous, and demand extreme flexibility on the part of IT experts and users. In the old days, IT pros may have felt a sense of accomplishment at having hooked an IBM i application

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• New HiT Software Moves Data To Google App Engine

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  HiT Software last week unveiled a new version of its data replication software that’s designed to keep customers’ Google cloud apps in synch with their on premise relational databases. DBMoto Cloud G Edition automatically pushes data from any backend database, such as DB2/400, into the Google App Engine Datastore using the Internet giant’s Web service APIs, providing another way for companies to present their valuable data to new Web and mobile apps. Google App Engine (GAE) is a platform as a service (PaaS) cloud offering that Google first rolled out as a beta in 2008 and as a fully supported

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• ASNA Gives Legacy AVR Customers an Extension

  January 22, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Having customers on a legacy product will make you do funny things. For IBM, it meant bowing to pressure and keeping i5/OS V5R4 around for seven years. Microsoft almost doubled that with Windows XP, which will be 13 years old when support ends next year. ASNA also has a legacy customer base that’s dependent on Windows XP-era technology, but a recent update will give them some breathing room as they modernize their systems. ASNA recently shipped the first new version of ASNA Visual RPG (AVR) in many years. AVR, of course, is ASNA’s flagship product that allows programmers to

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• Steampunk Will Be The Next Big Rage, So Saith IBM

  January 21, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  If “IBM” was the only word in that headline that made any sense to you, you’re not alone. While IBM has spent the last 100-plus years making a name for itself in the computing world, it is probably not even on the list when it comes to discussing pop culture trends. Let’s start with the obvious question. Steampunk is defined by IBM as a sub-genre inspired by the clothing, technology, and social mores of Victorian society. Wikipedia provides a more detailed description of steampunk as a type of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works, which can include

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• SAP Profits From HANA Appliance, Cloud, And Plain Old Software

  January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If Oracle thought it had killed archrival SAP, it looks like the German application software giant was only sleeping. In the December quarter, SAP booked €1.94 billion in software license fees, up 9 percent, and within this segment, the company’s cloud software business, driven by acquisitions and organic growth, was up a stunning 2,000 per cent to €126 million. Software and related services revenues accounted for €4.23 billion, up 14 percent year-on-year. Total sales came to €5.02 billion, up 12 percent. Operating profits fell by 5 percent to €1.59 billion. On a full-year basis, SAP’s revenues came in at

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• Data Skills Crashes Dice Top Five Hiring Demands

  January 21, 2013 Dan Burger

  The sun has just eased over the horizon of calendar year 2013, but those up-at-the-crack-of-dawn, career-minded folks at Dice are already predicting steady growth in the hiring of tech talent in the first half of the year. Recruiting priorities are essentially unchanged with Java professionals leading the way, but a new skill category has slipped into the top 10. Hiring managers and recruiters say data skills are a hot–and getting hotter–ticket in the job market. Not quite on the radar last year, data wranglers are considered a necessary investment, especially when those talents are tied to communication skills. Just a

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• IBM Europe Gives Rebates To Power Resellers Who Push ISV Wares

  January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As we report elsewhere in this issue, IBM‘s customers in the United States are being treated to a sweetened trade-in deal if they are buying new Power7 or Power7+ iron and trade-in old Power or non-IBM iron in the process. IBM Europe is taking a slightly different approach in a deal that it announced last week: it will pay Power System resellers an extra rebate it they peddle the boxes with specific software created by third parties. In announcement letter ZA13-1004, which came out on January 15, IBM says that it will pay “business partner solution providers,” perhaps

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• IBM: I Have Seen the Future And It Works

  January 21, 2013 Dan Burger

  It’s quite a ride from the era of the common man to the era of cognitive systems, but get on board, the Big Blue train is leaving the station. IBM has some fun each year, and creates a little publicity buzz, by mixing budding technologies with market and social trends to whip up what it calls the “IBM Five in Five.” That is, the selection of five innovations made possible by computing and chosen because of their potential to change–within five years–the way humans work and play. According to IBM, we are about to enter the era of cognitive systems.

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• IBM Doubles Up Rebates On Power Systems Trade-In Deal

  January 21, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I told you so. It is the new year, and as I said in the opening issue of The Four Hundred, IBM would be doing some wheeling and dealing to move Power Systems machinery ahead of the rollout of the rest of the Power7+ systems in 2013. So if you are looking to upgrade a vintage AS/400, iSeries, or System i box, their RS/6000, pSeries, or System p equivalents, or any number of non-IBM server iron, listen up. Because IBM has just doubled up the rebates on its long-running, on-again-off-again, Power Systems Trade-In Program. Actually, if you sift through

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Google Evildoers Filched Funds From My Wallet

  January 21, 2013 Hesh Wiener

  Late last year, Google said its Wallet mobile payment system had completed its larval stage. Google was going to phase out the special debit card used for the launch. The emerging adult Wallet could hold virtual versions of any debit or credit cards the user chose. These cards were wrapped in security and wired into a robust services framework. Wallet looked like another well executed Google launch. But that was before the letters started showing up, the ones talking about a lost or stolen MasterCard the Wallet user had never heard of. The letters came from MetaBank Everywhere Reward Cardholder

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