• The Feeds and Guessed Speeds of Power7

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Just before The Four Hundred went on hiatus, I told you that IBM would be making a presentation about the forthcoming Power7 processors at the Hot Chips 21 conference hosted by the IEEE at Stanford University. And indeed, the top techies working on the eight-core Power7 processors did raise the curtains a little bit about the future brains of the Power Systems lineup, which are due in 2010. IBM confirmed to me a little more than a year ago that the Power7 chips would have at least eight cores and would be made using a 45 nanometer process in Big

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• Server Makers Stomach the Worst Quarter in History

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Servers have been the backbone of the business of supplying corporate-scale data processing since mainframes were invented more than 40 years ago. Over the years, as Moore’s Law has provided faster, more capacious, and cheaper systems every year like clockwork and competitors bucked against each other for business, server makers have had to get their profits from other areas. If sales levels in the second quarter are any indication of the new normal level for the server biz, then there are some dramatic changes coming our way. The second quarter was, to put it bluntly, not just awful, but in

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• Training for the Future: An IT Degree in Energy Efficiency

  September 14, 2009 Dan Burger

  When it comes to IT skills that apply to jobs and careers for the future instead of the past, the makeover of Metropolitan Community College stands out. This educational facility, with its new enterprise-class data center and a recently overhauled curriculum, was featured in earlier this year in an article in The Four Hundred. Last week the school announced a new two-year associate degree program in the design and management of energy efficient data centers. MCC, which is based in Omaha, Nebraska but which has worldwide reach through its online course selection, has a long and strong business relationship

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• As I See It: The Future in Parallel

  September 14, 2009 Victor Rozek

  Ours is a mixed marriage. I am PC and my wife is Mac. We are the Yang and Yin of personal computing. She has Mac OS X, I have Windows XP. She has iPhoto, I have HP Photo. She has iChat, iMovie, iDVD, iCal, iSync, and iTunes, I have no tunes and a bunch of other stuff I seldom use. She has Steve Jobs, I have Bill Gates; which is to say she has cool and I have nerd. She has a virus free computer, I have multiple layers of security software and in spite of daily updates and scans,

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• IBM Gets Less Restrictive with Power ISV Rebates

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Well, that deal apparently didn’t go down well with the customers. Back at the end of June, IBM announced a rebate deal in conjunction with 88 of its independent software vendor partners who make software that runs on various operating systems on its Power Systems line, and it was so strict about greenfield installations of the software that it has had to back off on that restriction. I told you all about the original Power Systems First-in-Location Rebate offering here in the July 13 issue of The Four Hundred, which was detailed in announcement letter 309-546. As I

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• COMMON RiPS: A Good Idea Needing a Better Acronym

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The idea is sound. No question about it. COMMON, the AS/400 midrange user group that is now billing itself as The Power Systems User Group, is looking for people who have retired from their coding and administration jobs at i shops who nonetheless can contribute to and participate in the midrange community by staying active with COMMON and mentoring those whippersnappers who still need some schooling. But calling them RiPs? That’s a bit of gallows humor, isn’t it? A RiP, you will learn from this COMMON Web page, is short for Retired i Professional, which is distinct from

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• EU Haunts Oracle-Sun, Oracle Taunts IBM

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  While The Four Hundred was on summer hiatus, the European Union’s antitrust regulators threw a spanner into the works of Oracle‘s $7.4 billion proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems. And even though Sun has stopped talking to the press about anything, Oracle is starting to taunt IBM about how the future Sparc product line is gonna whip Power Systems iron on the TPC-C benchmark test and how Oracle is committed to the Sparc platform. Back in July, Sun’s shareholders voted to approve the Oracle acquisition of Sun, which should cost the company a little more than $5 billion

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• IBM Mothballs Older Versions of Host Integration Server

  September 14, 2009 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are one of the many shops using a relatively old release of IBM‘s Host Integration Server to modernize your 5250 or 3270 green screens and give them zippy Web screens, then you had better get ready to upgrade to a new version or start looking at alternative products. Last week, in announcement letter 909-222, IBM said that WebSphere Host Integration Server 3.0 and 3.1 for iSeries or for multiple platforms, HIS Intranet Version 4.0 and 4.1 for iSeries or Multiplatforms, and Version 5.0 of HIS for System i or multiplatforms would all see their technical support

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• Vendors Go Virtual with Annual User Conferences

  September 14, 2009 Alex Woodie

  Poor economic conditions are leading software companies to virtual user conferences hosted on the Internet as an inexpensive replacement for the traditional “in person” user conferences. System i software vendors Infor and VAI are the latest to replace physical get-togethers with virtual events, slated for October. But some organizations, including COMMON and Kronos, say virtual conferences can’t deliver the same level of education and networking opportunities and will therefore continue to host physical conferences. Now in its second year, the global economic recession has hit business travel hard. Companies have reduced or eliminated travel budgets, which has caused attendance

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• Greater Responsibility a Necessary Part of Vlok’s Vision

  September 14, 2009 Dan Burger

  The big highways can only get you so far. Sometimes a route that is off the beaten path is required. Such a plan makes some people nervous. Nonetheless, it is often a good idea. More than that, it actually makes sense in many ways. Do you think company CEOs are different than anyone else in this regard? A quick chat with Nicolaas Vlok, president and CEO of Vision Solutions, may change your mind. Vlok has become much more interested in an off-the-beaten-path approach since becoming involved with a charity called Children in the Wilderness. Vlok only learned about

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