• Infor Unveils Plan to Double Channel Revenue

  June 14, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Infor last week launched a new sales channel program called the Infor Partner Network (IPN) that introduces new rules that will guide the relationship between Infor and its 700 partners around the world. The company has aggressive plans for attracting new partners and hopes the IPN will contribute to a doubling in license revenue from the channel over the next three years. The new IPN program will make several changes to Infor’s existing program. The company says partners will be motivated by the program’s “highly competitive commission rates,” as well as new performance bonuses. Partners will also get access to

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• Skybot: When Automated Scheduling is Not for IBM i

  June 14, 2011 Dan Burger

  Assuring jobs run on time and in the right order is a frequent operations issue. To reduce the risks that come with jobs running out of order and those that never run due to malfunctions or oversight, companies frequently turn to job scheduling automation software. In IBM i shops, one of the trusted names in this line of work is Help/Systems, a company that’s taken care of such things for more than 25 years. Recently Help/Systems expanded its reach beyond IBM i-centric software. Skybot Software is Help/Systems’ first foray into a non-IBM i market. It’s been set up as

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• IBM Ships New Collaborative Lifecycle Management Suite

  June 14, 2011 Alex Woodie

  IBM Rational today begins delivery of its new collaborative lifecycle management (CLM) suite, a collection of three existing tools designed to foster greater collaboration in the change management, requirements, and testing phases of the application development lifecycle. With the version 3.0.1 releases of Rational Team Concert, Rational Requirements Composer, and Rational Quality Manager, the products have been linked, and will be sold as the CLM 2011 release. The announcement was made last week at INNOVATE 2011, the annual conference for Rational held in Orlando, Florida. Of the three products, IBM i shops are probably most familiar with Rational Team Concert

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• Two-Tier ERP Deployments Gain Steam

  June 14, 2011 Alex Woodie

  Companies are increasingly seeking two-tier ERP deployments to support distributed operations, according to a recent study by Constellation Research. While running a mixture of different ERP systems in a hub-and-spoke manner is nothing new, the percentage of companies open to two-tier deployments has more than doubled in recent years. The trend could benefit the IBM i platform, as companies look to make the most of existing ERP investments and avoid expensive and disruptive company-wide ERP implementations. According to Constellation analyst R “Ray” Wang’s two-tier ERP report, which was published February 28, the percentage of companies considering a two-tier ERP

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• Flux Delivers Automation for Changing Workloads

  June 14, 2011 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are in the market for a combined job scheduler and managed file transfer (MFT) solution may want to check out Flux. The Las Vegas company’s Java-based workload automation and MFT tool, also called Flux, can orchestrate file movements and initiate processing on a wide range of platforms, including IBM‘s midrange servers. With the launch of Flux 7.11 last month, the tool gets a REST Web services API, better integration with Cognos, and enhancements to its Web browser-based UI. Flux is used to create and execute automated workflows that involve a combination of steps

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• IBM Re-Plugs Pulled Plug On, Er, Power Systems Modem Plugs

  June 13, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  It is hard to believe that people still care about modems in this broadband world, but fax/modems still matter to a lot of IT operations. When IBM was busy swinging its axe to chop things out of the Power Systems catalog back in January, it looks like it got tangled up in some modem cables and cut itself. The chop came down in announcement letter 911-010, when IBM killed off the last remaining Power6 and Power6+ systems from the catalog, warning customers that the BladeCenter JS23 and JS43 blade servers would not be available after April 29, that the

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• IBM Encourages BPs to Get Smarter About Mobile and Social Computing

  June 13, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  Our motto at IT Jungle is to “survive, adapt, and thrive,” and that is a fitting mantra for many businesses trying to make it in today’s economy. To survive, companies must adapt to changing technology, and nothing is changing faster than the opportunities brought on by mobile and social computing. IBM is looking to help business partners (BPs) adjust to shifting buying patterns brought on by mobile and social computing by expanding its Smarter Commerce initiative, which delivers software and services to help companies get their brand wherever a customer might be shopping, be it on partner Web sites, social

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• IBM Tweaks Power Systems Trade-In Deal, Yet Again

  June 13, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Back in February, IBM yanked a whole bunch of different trade-in deals it had in place for its Power Systems server lineup. But a long-running trade-in deal is aimed at getting old iSeries, System i, pSeries, and System p servers unplugged–as well as machines from its Unix and proprietary systems competitors–and replaced with modern Power gear. The last time this particular Power Systems trade-in deal was resurrected was in announcement letter 311-078 on March 22. IBM gave trade-in credit ranging from $250 to $8,000 on vintage and more recent entry iSeries and System i machines. Multiple machines could be consolidated

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• Big Data is the Big Daddy of Priorities for Midmarket CIOs

  June 13, 2011 Jenny Thomas

  “Go Big or Go Home” is fast-becoming the new battle cry heard from midmarket IT departments around the globe. The demand by companies for better analytics, i.e., the ability to extract actionable insights from “Big Data,” was cited as the number one priority in a recent survey of midmarket chief information officers (CIOs) by IBM. Midsize businesses, together with small enterprises, are responsible for nearly 65 percent of the global GDP, representing more than 90 percent of all businesses and employing over 90 percent of the world’s workforce, so their desire for better analytics isn’t all that surprising. Like

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• Reader Feedback on Still Wanted: A Cheap–or Free–IBM i Development Workstation

  June 13, 2011 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hi, Tim: Could IBM not offer this as a cloud solution? I’m thinking that they have some huge server farms, stick a few System i boxes online, have some sort of registration process, and then allow programmers to play with RPG and etcetera online? Doesn’t take a lot and there is the cheap development environment carried over the Internet??? –Pete Hi, Pete: I did suggest that a cloudy option might be a possibility for a cheap development workstation at the end of my story. It is a question of economics. The problem is that a Power6 or Power7 chip is

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