• IBM Offers More Discounts on Power Servers

  December 1, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A few weeks ago, IBM offered customers using its AIX variants of its Power5, Power5+, and Power6 machines discounts on processor activations for installed iron, and offered customers with Power5 and Power5+ machines in the System p 590 and 595 machines discounts. These discounts were as high as 60 percent on older Power5 and Power5+ iron and 45 percent on Power6 iron. Now, customers buying new Power Systems iron with Power6 processors are being offered rebates to make a sale a bit easier to sell to upper management in a jittery economy. On a Power Systems 570 machine (that’s a

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• IDC Projects IT Slowdown in Europe in 2009

  December 1, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Only a few weeks ago, we told you how the analysts at IDC had trimmed their forecasts for global IT spending. Well, this week, IDC is providing a little more detail about the IT spending situation across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, and the news is not exactly good. Blame the economic meltdown, which started off with the United States and its careless lending and securitization of mortgages but which was emulated by and financed by inventors across the globe. IDC is now projecting that IT spending across the EMEA region will only grow by 3 percent

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• Lawson Cuts Jobs to Get Costs in Line with Sales

  December 1, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Midrange ERP application software provider Lawson Software took some financial hits in the past year as it had to write off some investments it had made in sophisticated financial instruments, and now the economic slowdown that has by and large been caused by the economic hangover from similar investments made by the market at large has come boomeranging around and forced Lawson to do layoffs. When an economic collapse is caused by the assumption of too much risk by the broader markets, we always pay one, two, three, or four times over for our exuberance, and we almost never learn

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• IBS Wants to Build Up Its Global Channel

  December 1, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Swedish ERP software maker International Business Systems is trying to get some traction in the midrange, and is looking to embrace and push the Windows platform without abandoning its installed base of i customers. As all midrange shops know, success in the midrange is usually driven by success in the channel, and that is why IBS has announced that it is looking to build out its global channel. To that end, IBS has announced that as part of its strategic restructuring back in September (see IBS Picks Windows Instead of i as Strategic ERP Platform for more on that), the

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• Traveler Has Arrived; Lotus Notes Gets Handheld Mobility

  December 1, 2008 Dan Burger

  It’s been a long journey, but the Traveler has finally arrived. IBM‘s Lotus Notes users–particularly those who count on mobile access and have been wishing upon star after star that an option to Windows mobile devices would be available–know what I’m talking about. Nokia S60 smartphones, which already support Microssoft Exchange, are about to deliver Lotus Notes collaboration functionality that includes e-mail, calendaring, and other applications such as an address book, journal, and to-do lists. Mobility options for Notes users had been limited to laptops. According to IBM, there are more than 140 million licensed users of Lotus Notes.

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• IBM’s Transitive Buy Presents Interesting Server Options

  November 24, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Here’s a story you’ve heard a bunch of times: IBM liked the software so much, it bought the company. And so the story ran again last week, when Big Blue bought software emulation specialist Transitive for an undisclosed sum of money. Transitive makes a bit of software called QuickTransit, which allows applications created for one chip to be encapsulated, and run on completely different architectures. Like so many of IBM’s moves, the acquisition of Transitive appears to be both an offensive and defensive move at the same time. More on that in a bit. But first, let’s review what QuickTransit

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• Midrange Shops Not As Protected from Disaster As They Think, Vision Finds

  November 24, 2008 Alex Woodie

  System i and System p shops have an irrational faith in the capabilities of their disaster recovery systems, and could be in for a harsh reality check if their servers go down unexpectedly. This is according to a report issued last week by high availability software provider Vision Solutions, which looks at the DR and HA technologies used by these organizations and the expectations placed upon them. For its new report, entitled The State of Resilience and Optimization on IBM Power Systems, Vision Solutions and its strategic partner, the Information Availability Institute, surveyed more than 2,000 IT

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• Public Safety Works on Information Sharing, May Go for SaaS

  November 24, 2008 Dan Burger

  Data integration problems plague a lot of organizations, but this curse may be best illustrated by examining the grief it brings to law enforcement agencies. It’s here that information sharing can come down to life and death situations without that claim setting off the hyperbole alarms. Improving data integration internally as well as among federal, state, county, and local agencies is a law enforcement priority and there are numerous initiatives and best practices paving the way. The IBM AS/400, iSeries, and System i are sometimes in the line of fire. Using law enforcement as an example of the challenges of

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• As I See It: Final Options

  November 24, 2008 Victor Rozek

  Let’s face it: if a couple trillion dollars in bailouts didn’t fix the economy, it’s probably in worse shape than even gloomy analysts want to admit. For one thing, if the economy wasn’t already on life support, we wouldn’t have found out about it until after the election. We all know the trends: a quarter million jobs lost in October alone, hundreds of businesses closing, and the Big Three auto makers trolling the halls of Congress with a sign reading “Will work for $25 billion.” It’s getting so bad Gladys Knight had to lay off one of her Pips. None

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• As Rumored, IBM Tweaks i Development Tool Bundle

  November 24, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  A little less than a month ago, I told you that IBM was rumored to be thinking about tweaking its Rational tool bundle for the System i and Power Systems i entry machines. And lo and behold, the very precise rumor that I told you about–which was conveyed to me from a business partner, who got the information from an IBMer in the know–has indeed come to pass. Specifically, IBM made yet another announcement of the rejiggering of the compiler and related toolset last week for its smaller i platforms. Because you don’t have the entire System i and Power

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