Dan Burger
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More Jobs Lost Than Found During IBM Resource Action
March 14, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreIBM‘s latest “Resource Action,” as it calls layoffs, has put the company in a position that is hard to defend. Big Blue has a ton of employees who were hired five, 10, 15, or 20 years ago to do work that no longer aligns with IBM’s strategic road map. Sorry folks, this company is not who you thought it was. And it’s no longer making money the way we thought it would. So things are changing.
Years of good job reviews and loyalty to the company get you a “Thanks for Coming” award. By executive decision, IBM is going
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PowerTech Goes Multi-Platform with Security Policy Software
March 9, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreRegulatory compliance standards have forced companies to pay attention to IT security and be accountable for who has authority and how much authority they have. In general, the track record on this type of thing is a horror story. Organizations often hover on the verge of near compliance. And compliance requirements, by their nature, continually evolve. This is why software such as PowerTech‘s Policy Minder has been developed.
It’s the responsibility of the system administrators and IT departments to make sure they are in compliance with regulatory measures like the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DDS), Sarbanes-Oxley
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A Change Of Heart: IBM i Shops More Willing To Share
March 7, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreOn the road from the AS/400 to IBM i, there have been many changes. One of the biggest has been the evolution from being a fortress that locked out all “outsiders” to allowing the system to interact with other systems. I don’t doubt there are some one-dimensional IBM i shops, but sharing data, once punishable by death, now occurs without beads of sweat and loss of sleep . . . most of the time.
The IBM i platform has a strong record of being directly accessible to other platforms, especially within the Windows realm, Mike Sansoterra points out. Sansoterra is
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The Most Precious IBM i Resource . . . Women
March 7, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreMan’s work and women’s work, can you describe the difference? Think about all the reasons there are tasks that fit into one or the other category. Then think about the IBM midrange community and why the ratio of men to women must be 10 to one, or even greater. Unbalanced? Obviously. Discrimination? I’m not here to throw that bomb. Successful women in this business? Yes, there are many.
I’m going to mention just a few highly successful women from the IBM i community right off the top of my head: Alison Butterill, IBM i Product Offering Manager; Susan Gantner, highly
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WebSmart For Node.js Beta Project Under Way
February 29, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreWhen IBM i got support for Node.js eight months ago, it lit a fire. BCD Software threw a log on that fire last week by announcing its Web development environment WebSmart supports Node.js as well. It’s a beta project now, but if things go according to plan WebSmart for Node.js will be generally available in three months. Will the open source Node.js be as popular in the IBM midrange community as open source PHP? We will have to see how that plays out.
Node.js applications can be rendered on desktops, tablets and smartphones when BCD releases WebSmart Node.js.
IBM’s support
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Power Systems Fuel IBM Channel Growth, Says Avnet Exec
February 29, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreIn the past year, the IBM channel has experienced 25 percent growth on Power, according to an executive at Avnet, one of IBM’s dominant sales channel partners. Workloads attributed to business analytics, high performance business computing, and management of big data–all the areas that IBM predicted would make a difference–are driving the gains. Managed service providers are getting some of the credit, but on-premise upgrades for customers are in on this, too.
Richard Martinez’s business card identifies him as supplier business executive for IBM Power at Avnet, which along with Arrow Electronics, is one of IBM’s biggest business
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iNext Revealed As IBM i 7.3
February 22, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreAs psychological thrillers go, the IBM i strategy and roadmap falls short of entertaining movies like “Gravity” and “Chinatown” or good reads like “The Andromeda Strain” and “In Cold Blood.” But there’s always an element of suspense when a new release of the IBM i operating system is lurking in the shadows. Chief Architect Steve Will provided a heads up last week that what’s coming is more than the typical cloak and dagger Technology Refresh.
To the casual observer, a new release of IBM‘s best camouflaged operating system isn’t due to arrive for another two years. It was 2014
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The Rewards of IBM i Community Engagement
February 22, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreIn a world where outlandish claims, one-upsmanship, and hyperbole are as certain as the sun rising each day, it’s no exaggeration to describe the late Al Barsa as the greatest IBM midrange advocate of all time. Like the system itself, Barsa was brilliant and meticulously thorough. He knew the system as well as anyone. The IBM midrange community needs more people like Al Barsa. Not that it has none. It simply needs more.
Barsa was a real piece of work, and that should be interpreted in the most complementary way. He could be difficult. He could be eccentric. But he
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Speed Versus Need In IBM i Mobile Initiatives
February 15, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreAs mobile access to corporate communications and data becomes more widespread in IBM midrange shops, those who are just arriving at the party can learn a great deal from those who came before them. We learn from our mistakes, but actually it’s a lot less bloody when we learn from others mistakes. And when mistakes do get made; there will be pressure to step on the accelerator before turning on the lights. Damn the darkness. Let’s go mobile!
Security and employee education are two major issues that are being de-emphasized or ignored until something bad happens. If it wasn’t for
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IBM i Shines In Academic Research Data Center
February 15, 2016 Dan Burger
… Read moreThe Power Systems Academic Initiative is more than classes that teach RPG, PHP, and enterprise computing. It’s much more. It’s about research and the role of information technology. And more and more it’s about data and analyses. Where this is headed has caused the Academic Initiative data center to relocate to accommodate growth and the requests from colleges and universities that keeps IBM i in the midst of innovation.
During the past month and a half, the AI data center has found a new home in Tucson, Arizona, in a facility IBM uses primarily for its storage product testing and