• bTrade Upgrades MFT Product for IBM i 7.1

  January 15, 2013 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops looking for managed file transfer (MFT) products may want to add another vendor to their list of potential suppliers: bTrade. The Southern California company, which has a long history supplying EDI and data integration tools to IBM i and mainframe shops, in December unveiled TDAccess version 3.2.1, a new release of its MFT tool that adds support for IBM i 7.1. TDAccess is one of several MFT solutions sold by bTrade, and the only one listed on its website that supports IBM i. The software (which runs on all other major operating systems as well) supports

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• HANA on Power? It May Be in the Cards

  January 15, 2013 Alex Woodie

  SAP made a major splash in the IT world last week when it announced that its HANA in-memory database can now be used to power not just analytical workloads, but transactional workloads in its ERP suite, too. It’s a notable technical achievement for the German software giant, but it left SAP’s IBM i customer base with little to applaud, since HANA currently runs only on X86 servers. But that could change if the work that SAP and IBM are doing to get HANA running on Power pans out. During last week’s webcast from Palo Alto, California, SAP technology and innovation

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• RPG & DB2 Summit Adds Analytics, BI To Agenda

  January 14, 2013 Dan Burger

  RPG & DB2 Summit Adds Analytics, BI To Agenda The RPG & DB2 Summit, a twice-annual, subject-focused conference hosted by System i Developer, will take place March 19 through 21 in Atlanta, Georgia. The event is billed as “an interactive, total-immersion experience to RPG and DB2 for i developers who want to stay abreast of the latest advancements and learn how to apply specific RPG and DB2 techniques to keep their software applications vibrant and innovative.” Registration is now open. The RPG and DB2 topics covered include RPG IV, ILE, and modular programming; embedded SQL, DB2 for i capabilities,

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• Job Board For IBM i Talent Powers Up

  January 14, 2013 Dan Burger

  Finally, the day has come: IBM i shops on the search for young talent have a dedicated job board to turn to. We have been hearing for years how companies have a difficult time locating people with the specific skills to take on entry-level jobs. There have been fears that the talent pool was drying up. At the same time, colleges teaching IBM i skills as part of their computer science curriculum have not always been successful in placing graduates with companies that had job openings. It has been a frustrating disconnect. A job board has been on the IBM

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• The IBM Patent Machine Keeps A-Cranking In 2012

  January 14, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It has been so long since IBM was not the company at the top of the list of firm issued utility patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that no one can remember who used to be at the top. With the rankings for 2012, Big Blue has been the undisputed leader since 1992, when it was in the middle of both a recession and an identity crisis and yet kept investing in research and development. As we explain every year when this story rolls around in January, the USPTO stopped doing official counts and publicizing the number of

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• IT Salaries In North America To Creep Up A Bit In 2013

  January 14, 2013 Jenny Thomas

  Most of us who have managed to stay employed during the last few years of tough economic times are just grateful to be working. Economic unrest has forced companies to drastically downsize or completely shut down, and IT departments have not been spared as many businesses struggle to survive. In many ways, the IT department has done better than other parts of companies, thanks to the ubiquity and necessity of computing, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been stress. The good news is that IT pros will see an improvement in pay this year, according to the 2013 IT Salary

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• North American IT Budgets Stalled By Economic Issues

  January 14, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Like the rest of us, the analysts at Computer Economics want to know what IT shops are planning to do in terms of capital and operational spending this year. And so the company did a survey in the fourth quarter to take the pulse at IT shops around the world, which in North America at least were jittery because of the elections and the looming Fiscal Cliff issues in the United States. The survey is the basis of the company’s Outlook for IT Spending and Staffing in 2013 report, which was just released. Computer Economics did in-depth surveys of

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• IBM Splits Global Services Again As Mike Daniels Steps Down As GM

  January 14, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A year ago, after taking the helm of IBM, Ginni Rometty reshuffled some executive assignments, and one of the things she did after moving up and out of the company’s Global Services and sales organizations to become the company’s CEO was to get executives in place for the eventual retirement of her former peer at Global Services, general manager Mike Daniels. As 2013 got started, Rometty let IBMers know in an internal memo that Global Services was being split into two bits again, that was because Daniels was retiring on March 31. Several years ago, before it was clear

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• As I See It: Success, The Career Killer

  January 14, 2013 Victor Rozek

  “I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.” Better yet to be a success at something you love and to remain lucid and funny past your hundredth birthday. But Naftaly Birnbaum was an anomaly. He knew what he wanted to do by age seven. Talent and singular focus propelled a career that spanned vaudeville, radio, television, and film. By the time of his death, he was a national icon best known by his adopted stage name, George Burns. Characterizing career success can be as elusive

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• SAP Puts In-Memory Database At The Heart Of Its BusinessSuite ERP

  January 14, 2013 Alex Woodie

  SAP last week made the major leap of officially supporting the use of its HANA in-memory database to power SAP BusinessSuite, its flagship enterprise software. Putting HANA in charge of managing analytical and transactional applications and their data simultaneously marks a huge architectural change for the German ERP giant, and it shows that the company is not afraid to take chances. Breaking the barrier between transactional and analytical data will pay off, SAP says, because it will allow businesses to “analyze and predict instantly.” Ever since IBM invented it and Oracle popularized it 30-plus years ago, the relational database management

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