• Lavastorm: An Analytic Power Tool for All Seasons

  November 8, 2011 Alex Woodie

  The folks at MDS Lavastorm Analytics have created an analytic tool that defies easy description. On the one hand, Lavastorm is a lightweight ETL tool for cleaning and validating data. But it’s also a graphical, drag-and-drop SQL editor. It provides classic reporting and dashboard functionality, but also detects fraud and other irregularities in billing systems. It’s a cross-reference tool, and a business rules engine too. It slices and dices–and does just about everything but make julienne fries. But perhaps most surprising of all is it’s commonly used in IBM i environments. Traditionally, business intelligence tools are used by non-technical business

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• Arpeggio Introduces IBM i Security Monitoring Solutions

  November 8, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Arpeggio Software last week unveiled SIFT-IT Free Edition, a new IBM i security monitoring utility that, as the name indicates, is free. The free edition of SIFT-IT automates the monitoring and review of IBM i security logs, while an enterprise version provides expanded log coverage, in addition to real-time notifications and technical support. SIFT-IT is the first product suite for Arpeggio, which was founded by the developers behind TrailBlazer Systems’ ZMOD file transfer product. SIFT-IT Enterprise keeps an eye on the key logs, journals, and message queues that the IBM i OS and third-party apps use to collect security-related messages,

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• Small Businesses Agree Social Media Is A Path To Customers

  November 7, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  The acceptance of social media as a legitimate means of capturing or communicating with customers continues to grow. A recent study by Newtek Business Services, a peddler of services and financial products to the small- and medium-size business market, found that nearly 60 percent of companies polled use social media tools to communicate with customers. Even if your small business has not dipped a toe in the social media tidal wave, someone in the organization must be considering it. The cost of a social media campaign alone is pretty attractive. The basic expense is just the labor of the

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• IBM Powers Up Software Development Lab With Rooftop Solar Array

  November 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM has a Power Systems and System z software lab in Bangalore, India, appropriately enough called the India Software Lab. While there’s plenty of good IT talent in India and the Indian government likes for IBM to invest in the local economy to get the local business, Bangalore does have its problems. And a big one is that its electrical grid and power supply is not up to snuff. This can wreak havoc on a software lab that needs to keep Power and mainframe iron up and running to do software development and testing. IBM installed a fleet of backup

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• Arrow Electronics ECS Unit Keeps Humming In Q3

  November 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Last week, we told you all about how the IT distribution business of master reseller Avnet did in the third quarter, and this week, it is time to take a gander at what is up with its rival Arrow Electronics, which is also a big distributor of IBM systems, storage, and software. In the quarter ended in September, the Enterprise Computer Systems group at Arrow grew by 26 percent, to $1.54 billion, and it even managed to grow its operating income by 51.4 percent to $53.7 million. The electronics components distribution business, which is larger at $3.65 billion, grew

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• U.S. Unemployment Rate Inches Down, IT Sector Adds Jobs

  November 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The job situation in the United States has improved in the past three months, but the growth in the workforce is still not sufficient to keep up with population growth, much less make much of a dent in the unemployment rate, which remains stubbornly at high levels. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly snapshot of the American workforce based on surveys of employers and of the unemployment rate based on surveys of households. The household data showed that the unemployment rate ticked down one measly tenth of a point, to 9 percent by the end of

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• TUG Night School Matches Enthusiasm with Capability

  November 7, 2011 Dan Burger

  At the end of another grind-it-out day in the IT department, several of the RPG programmers were having a conversation. One mentioned that he had to go to school that evening and he wasn’t really looking forward to it. The others, sensing an opportunity to give him a hard time, asked why he dreaded going to school. “Well, I’m tired and I’d much rather go home and crash,” the nearly truant night school student said. “Those aren’t good reasons,” the others shot back. “So why don’t you guys give me some good reasons why I should go?” the first guy

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• Flexera to Tag Apps on IBM i for Usage Monitoring, License Audits

  November 7, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Flexera Software, the developer of the InstallShield and InstallAnywhere utilities that guide software installations on practically every PC and server on the planet–including those running IBM i–is ramping up a new software tagging initiative. The plan involves embedding XML-based software tags into the applications installed with Flexera’s utilities and then providing software asset management tools to enable customers to more effectively track their application usage and cope with vendor licensing audits. There are two arguments in favor of software identification (SWID) tags: one from the organizations that buy and use software and the other from the vendors that develop

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• Mad Dog 21/21: ARMs To Fare Well

  November 7, 2011 Hesh Wiener

  Steve Jobs was such a captivating promoter of inventions that his products reshaped our thinking, defining or redefining products we once thought we fully understood. At his best, Jobs was almost too good. If Picasso were God all fish would be flounders. But the computer industry, like nature, fosters diversity. Apple‘s smart clients, the iPhone and iPad, are iconic devices built around systems-on-a-chip (SoCs), but they are not the only important applications of this technology. Servers, too, can be made from compact, efficient, and inexpensive SoCs. And they will prove to be exceedingly disruptive. Two examples that have been

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• Profits Boom As Magic Software Snaps Up BluePhoenix AppBuilder Biz

  November 7, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Earlier this year, when IBM i development tool maker Magic Software Enterprises turned in some explosively growing financials, we commented that the company, which was flush with cash, might soon be on the prowl for acquisitions because of that hoard. And indeed it was. Last week, Magic Software shelled out $17 million to acquire the AppBuilder product line and customer base from BluePhoenix Solutions. While it is perceived as being mostly a vendor of IBM mainframe development tools, BluePhoenix sells tools that work on other platforms. The AppBuilder workbench is a code generator that can spit out code for

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