• Arrow Empowers Partners To Peddle Converged Systems, Eats Another IT Recycler

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It would be a good thing for IBM to be able to have the full focus of a master distributor such as Arrow Electronics when it introduces a new technology such as the PureFlex modular systems. But the master distributors are just that: The main conduits that buffer the server makers from the capriciousness of the IT buyers and lets them all get product into a vast distribution channel and essentially outsource the sales job to all but the largest accounts. In exchange for that service, companies like IBM have to share the attentions of Arrow and give them the

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• Cisco: Data Center Traffic To Quadruple Thanks To Clouds

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It looks like you are probably going to join the 10 Gigabit Ethernet wave in your data center, and it looks like increasingly cloudy applications, which cut across servers in distributed architectures, are going to be the force driving you to upgrade your network. That’s the prognosis from networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems, which obviously has a vested interest in seeing network traffic and greenfield cloudy server installations take off. The analysts at Cisco have taken a sample of data center traffic inside 10 midrange and large data centers, with a mix of public and private data

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• Gartner Says Big Data Getting Bigger, Skills Lag

  October 29, 2012 Dan Burger

  It’s a mighty big shadow that Big Data casts. As is the nature of shadows, their size has a lot to do with the source of the light. Last week Gartner was the source, and reports were published from one end of the media galaxy to the other concerning the firm’s predictions for the future of IT. Big Data loomed large and predictions were appropriately big with forecasts for increasing bigness. The question this begs is: Who’s prepared for this? Anyone who has not already been handling Big Data (the capitalization makes it even bigger, don’t you think?) can take

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• As I See It: Born Again Computers

  October 29, 2012 Victor Rozek

  Small business start-ups have a notoriously short half-life. And non-profits are even less likely to thrive. With the ascendency of Wall Street-style greed, doing good fell out of fashion, and packing a conscience became regarded as more hindrance than help. But in an era when those most blessed by fortune have backed away from communal responsibility, it is still possible for empathy to bind with hard work and create an enterprise that is both successful and honorable. One such enterprise not only provides a valuable service but, within its sphere of influence, is also addressing stubborn social challenges and a

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• Server Sales Hiccup Stalls Avnet In September Quarter, December Sobering Up

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  System and component sales at master reseller Avnet took a pause in the fiscal quarter ended in September, catching the company’s top brass a bit unawares as the declines were larger than expected. You can blame the U.S. presidential election and the uncertainty surrounding that as well as the uncertainty in certain debt-laden countries in Europe, if that makes you feel better. IBM had some software sales slip in the third quarter in its emerging markets that made its numbers worse than expected, as The Four Hundred previously reported, but at the same time Big Blue’s System x, Power

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• Knowledge Is Power When Assessing Your IBM i Legacy

  October 29, 2012 Alex Woodie

  The IBM i platform can be both a blessing and a curse to you, the IBM i customer. While its integrated nature and reliability insulates you from tasks and expenses commonly faced by users of mainstream platforms, the “black box” and its longevity also tends to mask problems that may be lurking in your RPG code. So it’s not surprising that when you evaluate how to modernize your IT system, the lack of visibility into the inner workings of your system can lead to fear, panic, and, ultimately, uninformed decisions. It is interesting to note how the IBM i platform’s

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• Thanks For The (Higher Priced) Memories?

  October 29, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM likes to talk sometimes about the convergence of the System i product line (running what was then i5/OS) and the System p product line as a relatively recent development, and dates the official name change to Power Systems back in April 2008. But we have longer memories than that here at The Four Hundred and we know that the first converged server was actually a “Northstar” server that came out in 1997 and that the convergence plans date from before then. I have nothing against convergence, even though I have been annoyed over the past decade and a half

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• UNICOM Nabs Versant for Object-Oriented Databases

  October 23, 2012 Alex Woodie

  UNICOM expanded into the object oriented database data realm this month when it announced plans to buy Versant, a publicly traded developer of several object-oriented databases, for about $32 million. Founded in 1988 as Object Sciences Corp., Versant was an early proponent of object oriented databases, which store data as objects. Object database management systems (ODBMS) bring performance advantages over relational database management systems (RDBMS) in powering applications that are written in object oriented languages and require storing of complex objects. Versant’s first product was the Versant Object Database (VOD), which began to gain steam in the early 1990s

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• UK Firm Signs On to Resell looksoftware Modernization Tools

  October 23, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Astech, an IT consultancy based in central England, has signed a partnership agreement with IBM i application modernization tool vendor looksoftware to resell look’s software across the U.K. Astech specializes in providing IBM i and Microsoft expertise to private companies and government institutions in the U.K. The company says that its blend of IBM i and .NET programming skills enables it to take on client projects involving Web and mobile extensions to IBM i applications. Some of those Web and mobile projects will now bare the mark of looksoftware, the Australian developer of IBM i modernization tools. Looksoftware has

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• Attachmate Excited with Combination of Reflection and Windows 7

  October 23, 2012 Alex Woodie

  Attachmate yesterday unveiled Reflection 2011 R3, a new release of its terminal emulation suite for accessing IBM mainframe, IBM i, Unix, and Hewlett-Packard NonStop hosts. The new release is certified to run Windows 8, which will become available later this week. But Attachmate expects more customers to run the software on Windows 7, as businesses upgrade from Windows XP. Windows 8 brings a spiffy new user experience that’s designed to work the same whether the user is running a PC, a tablet, or a phone. However, Windows 8 is not expected to be widely adopted in the enterprise for some

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