• 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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• Majority of IT Managers Planning for Windows Server 2008, Survey Says

  February 25, 2008 Alex Woodie

  A survey conducted for Internet computer retailer CDW found that 63 percent of IT decision makers are planning to implement Windows Server 2008, a good indicator for Microsoft and its new operating system. CDW paid a company called Walker Information to conduct the first Windows Server 2008 Tracking Poll, along with the third Windows Vista Tracking Poll, during the first week of November. The group asked 772 IT decision makers a variety of questions about their views on the two operating systems, which corresponds with a statistical error rate of 3.5 percent. The survey found that 45 percent of IT

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• IBM’s Battle Plan for i5/OS Blade Servers

  February 18, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Putting together a blade server strategy that will appeal to the i5/OS and OS/400 ecosystem is not as simple as getting a blade server into the field and making OS/400 and i5/OS run on a Power blade. If it were–and I will remind everyone that this is how Windows and Linux got blades, and eventually Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX, too–then you would expect that OS/400 would have been on a blade server many years ago and the blade form factor would account for roughly 10 percent of revenues among i5/OS shops today, as it does for the server market at

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• Sundry i5/OS V6R1 and System i Enhancements

  February 18, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Our coverage of the forthcoming i5/OS V6R1 operating system continues this week with a hodge-podge of smaller enhancements and features that were rolled up into the January 29 announcements. IBM has made a bunch of tweaks to DB2 for i5/OS, logical partitioning, performance measurement, peripheral support, and other areas that will probably not individually compel customers to upgrade, but add their collective weight to the stack of new features and it could break the camel’s checkbook open to do some spending in 2008. I know we all mostly still call the integrated relational database inside OS/400 and i5/OS DB2/400, but

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• IT Salary Increases Are Anemic in 2007, Says Dice Survey

  February 18, 2008 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Dice, which is a Web site devoted to helping engineers and other technology experts get a job, recently put out its report casing how well or poorly professionals in the IT sector did in terms of salary and raises during 2007. And the short answer seems to be that, on average, pay raises were not anywhere near the increases that programmers and managers saw in 2006. That doesn’t mean that IT personnel are not in high demand, but that companies are being a bit stingy with the cash. Dice surveyed more than 19,000 IT professionals to create the raw

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• Mad Dog 21/21: Recovering Lost Prophets

  February 18, 2008 Hesh Wiener

  If you ask computer professionals who they thought were the leaders in data storage, chances are you’ll hear names like IBM, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Network Appliances, and Hitachi. If you asked these storage companies, you might get a different list that included some outfits that were largely unknown in the end user world. But end users probably don’t have to worry that they will miss out on some important new vendors. The Storage Establishment is buying up many of the emerging suppliers. This high-profile interest in the new crop of vendors makes all the contenders a

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