• Human Error the Number One Cause of Data Loss, Survey Says

  July 26, 2010 Alex Woodie

  Instead of cussing out the computer the next time data comes up missing, you should point the blame at yourself, according to a recent survey by Kroll Ontrack. The data recovery software vendor found that human error is the cause for 40 percent of the cases of data loss, compared to 29 percent for hardware or system failures. The human error number was up considerably from a similar study five years ago, indicating big changes in how we interact with computers. Kroll Ontrack said the big jump in data loss incidents attributable to human error was “staggering.” When the

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• The Rest of the Power7 Lineup Is Coming August 17

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are in the middle of negotiating a deal on a low-end Power 520, a midrange Power 550 or 750, or a high-end Power 595 server at the moment, you might want to put those negotiations on hold. It looks like IBM is getting ready to complete the rollout of the Power7-based Power Systems servers, and as I suggested in the lead story from last week’s issue, the four entry machines (including the Power 720 and three other new variants added more recently) and the high-end Power 795 are moving up from their original October launch date. Of

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• Microsoft Azure: An AS/400 for Private and Public Clouds

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I may be a whippersnapper compared to many of you dyed-in-the-wool System/38, System/36, and AS/400 old-timers, but I have been around long enough to see the irony of things with a certain amount of good humor and healthy detachment. And so I got a good chuckle last week when I saw that Microsoft was taking its Azure public cloud computing platform private, and perhaps to many more masses than it would have gotten through a public-only cloud. People are making a big deal about cloud computing–what I still like to call utility computing–not just because we need something new to

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• Increase in IT Jobs Led by Contract Worker Demands

  July 19, 2010 Dan Burger

  In the IT job market, recession-proof careers were about as reliable as tissue paper umbrellas. A lot of people got rained on. It’s not much better now than it was a year ago, but it is better. From a variety of sources comes the word that companies are ready to hire again. Some will try to reclaim quality people that were laid off, while others will look for less experienced, less expensive replacements or additions. Shops running their businesses on the IBM i operating system are following the same hiring pattern as everyone else. After talking with a handful of

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Smart Cube Is IBM’s Half-AS Imitation of Apple

  July 19, 2010 Hesh Wiener

  There are something like 225,000 iPhone programs available for download from the Apple App Store. By contrast, there are only about 10,000 true iPad apps. Google’s Android phones have 75,000 apps on tap, more or less. The original Application System, the IBM AS/400, now called the i like Apple products (but easily distinguished by checking sales volume) has a pathetic Web store selling canned systems under the Smart Cube rubric. There are about 80 software packages, but only 26 of them are for the i; the rest are for Intel-based Linux servers. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.

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• QlikTech Soars in IPO

  July 19, 2010 Alex Woodie

  The calendar said 2010, but it felt more like 1999 for a few hours last Friday, when business intelligence software developer QlikTech had a very successful initial public offering (IPO) of stock on the NASDAQ Global Market. QLIK rocketed upward by more than 30 percent after the opening bell, before settling down for a 28 percent gain, marking one of the most successful tech IPOs of the year and bolstering the notion that people are demanding BI software that’s inexpensive and easy to use. On a day when the NASDAQ index tanked by more than 3 percent, QLIK impressed many

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• IBM Trims the Power Systems Catalog Some More

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Well, you can tell that the Power7 generation of Power Systems machines will soon be in full swing because IBM has taken the scissors to the i-related product catalog again. In announcement letter 910-151, IBM said last week that it would be withdrawing its Power 560 (a midrange machine that scaled from four to 16 Power6 cores) and Power 570 (which ranged from two to 32 cores, either Power6 or Power6+, in a one to four chassis setup). As of January 7, 2011, IBM will no longer sell these two machines. A slew of features for various Power-based servers

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• Lawson Boosts Sales, But Costs Cut Profits in Fiscal Q4

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Midrange enterprise application provider Lawson Software, which has come under the harsh gaze of activist investor Carl Icahn in recent months, probably didn’t make Icahn any happier when the company closed out its fiscal 2010. In the fourth quarter ended May 31, Lawson’s revenues were up by 6 percent, to $197 million, with software license fees rising 13 percent to $38 million. Software maintenance services revenues were up 10 percent in the quarter, to $93.3 million, while consulting revenues fell by 3 percent, to $65.7 million in the quarter. Software maintenance, sales, marketing, and research and development costs

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• Maxava Says Business Doubled in the June Quarter

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  With so many privately held companies in the OS/400 and i ecosystem, it is hard to get a grasp of what business conditions are out there in AS/400 Land. But occasionally, to do a little bragging and to get a little free press, a hardware or software company gives us some insight into how biz is going. High availability software has been one of the key drivers of the iSeries, System i, and Power Systems market for the better part of two decades, and this has not changed even as the cost of both the systems and HA software have

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• Gartner Gives IT Spending Projections for 2010 a Haircut

  July 19, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The economic turmoil in Europe that is causing the decline of the euro against other currencies–namely the U.S. dollar where a lot of IT spending ultimately gets booked–have forced the analysts at Gartner to go back to the whiteboard and scribble some new numbers on it. In its most recent projection from the first quarter of this year, Gartner said it expected IT spending to grow by 5.3 percent globally when reckoned in U.S. dollars, to just under $3.4 trillion. But now, thanks to the deflation of the Europe and the U.S. dollar strengthening, global IT spending is only set

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