• IBM Ponies Up Another $15 Billion for Share Buybacks

  March 3, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Go ahead, call me stupid. Or old-fashioned. Or just plain Puritan. But I will never in a zillion years understand the logic of share buybacks–and especially those on a massive scale like IBM has undertaken since the mid-1990s. And last week, IBM’s board of directors authorized the company to shell out another $15 billion to buy back shares on the open market. As IBM itself pointed out in its announcement of the share repurchase authorization, the company has bought back a staggering $94 billion in its own stock from 1995 through 2007 inclusive. IBM still has $400 million in buybacks

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• Welcome to Legacy Status, Windows Server

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  This week, Microsoft will finally get Windows Server 2008, formerly known as “Longhorn Server” and the companion to the desktop Windows Vista operating system, out the door. If you don’t count normal service packs but do include sub-releases, this is the eighth major update to the Windows server platform, and as Windows has come to dominate the server space (unless you count Unix and Linux together, which I do), it has in many ways moved back in time and become a legacy system. Yes, I know how weird that sounds. But it is nonetheless true. A lot has changed with

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• i5/OS V6R1 Compiler and Tool Pricing Versus V5R4

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A few weeks ago, IBM provided a product preview concerning the rejiggering of application development tools for the System i platform embodied in WebSphere Development Server (WDS) as well as a statement of direction about the eventual sunsetting of its WebSphere Development Studio Client (WDSC) development tool, which has been replaced by the new Rational Developer for System i (RDi) tool as part of the i5/OS V6R1 announcements. What IBM did not provide was pricing on this software–at least not to customers. But partners know. While WDS and WDSC will be supported by IBM for at least two more years,

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• Gartner Gives Annual Report Cards to Server Makers

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The analysts at Gartner have finished their box and sales counting for the worldwide server market for 2007, and the good news is that companies continued to invest in server technology, boosting worldwide sales by 3.8 percent to $54.8 billion compared with 2006. That revenue growth was driven by even faster increases in shipments of feature-packed boxes, with shipments worldwide up 7.4 percent to 8.84 million units. The server world may be going virtual, but there is a lot of iron–tens of millions of production servers–that need to be replaced. The server market has had its ups and downs in

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• As I See It: Change in Plan

  February 25, 2008 Victor Rozek

  At some point, we all come face to face with the specter of limitation as time begins to pare down our options, awakening a dormant sense of urgency. It is, in part, a whimsical reminder that we’ll never become the major leaguer, or the astronaut, or the ballerina we once wanted to be. More bluntly, it is the humbling confirmation that we are not yet independently wealthy, are unlikely to win national acclaim, or have our book plugged by Oprah. It is the time when idealists discover that not only have they failed to save the world, they haven’t even

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• IDC Tweaks Global IT Spending Estimates Downward for 2008

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The analysts at IT market researcher IDC have taken a look at the state of the global economy and have decided that their initial estimates for spending in the information technology area in 2008 were just a tad bit rosy. And therefore, IDC has decided to lower its forecast for IT spending this year, despite the explosive growth in emerging markets and mostly because of a spending slowdown in IT in particular and in the overall economy in the United States. “While there is still debate over the severity and length of a U.S. economic slowdown, we do know that

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• Reader Feedback on Net Neutrality Comes Around on the Ferris Wheel Again

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The issue of Net Neutrality can get the blood boiling, and it should considering that the stakes are very high for our public lives and private economics as citizens and for the telecom and Internet giants who are vying to shape how the Net is regulated–or not. Here are some thoughts from a reader on the subject, which reflect a common viewpoint on the issue. And the strong language that people sometimes use as they discuss the issue. –TPM It all depends on how you slice it. These types of “services” that might include phone, cable, satellite TV, electricity, water,

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• IBM Offers Integrated Server and Storage Support

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In case you didn’t catch it, the big buyers of mainframes and high-end Power servers have been shaping IBM‘s product strategies for the past couple of years, despite all of the jawboning at Big Blue about the importance of the small and medium business server market. The truth is that there have always been at least two IBMs: one that served mainframe shops and one that serves midrange shops, and as much as IBM wants to change product and divisional names and related product strategies, it always comes to the same conclusions. The reason why IBM created the Power

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• NetManage Finishes 2007 on a High Note as Rocket Awaits

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In December, Rocket Software, a privately held maker of System i and mainframe tools, offered $69 million to acquire NetManage, a maker of host connectivity and application modernization tools for mainframes and System i servers. The offer came after years of ups and downs and consolidation in the tools and connectivity market. And it looks like NetManage is on the financial mend as Rocket Software is working to get the financing to close the NetManage deal. In the fourth quarter ended December 31, NetManage said that its revenues hit $10.9 million, up 27 percent compared to the fourth

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• Imation Previews Super-Dense Adjacent Track Tape Tech

  February 25, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Researchers at Imation, the magnetic tape manufacturer that was spun out of 3M in 1996 and which is one of the dominant makers of removable data storage media, recently announced a new breakthrough in its tape technology that will allow it to double the capacity on existing LTO-4 tape cartridges. Materials scientist Denis Langlois from Imation recently demonstrated a new multichannel, adjacent track data writing and reading technique that the company has created for LTO-4 tapes. The new technique was shown at the Information Storage Industry Consortium trade show in San Jose, one of the epicenters of storage technology

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