• Wanted: Power 745 M3 For IBM i SMBs

  March 19, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Call it a case of server envy. While I think IBM has the right server design for small and medium businesses that employ its workhorse IBM i operating system and database double whammy, it has unfortunately put the wrong processor in that machine. I am, of course, talking about Intel‘s long-awaited “Sandy Bridge-EP” Xeon E5-2600 processor, which debuted two weeks ago and started shipping in System x machines last Friday. The Xeon E5-2600 processors, also known by their internal code-name “Jaketown,” are designed for two-socket servers in the same power class as the Power 740 machine in the Power

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• What Is A Used 520-Class Machine Worth?

  March 19, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I must be getting old, there’s no doubt about that. And perhaps my memory is not as good as it used to be. But I thought something was funny when I looked on the IBM Global Financing’s refurbished equipment site to check out what second-hand Power Systems machines running earlier versions of the i5/OS V5R4 operating system cost. With i5/OS V5R4 being mothballed in September 2013, it seemed pretty relevant to see what Big Blue was charging for gear that ran V5R4 and that could also possibly run IBM i 6.1 or 7.1. The used equipment market has always been

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• IBM Looks Back At 2011 And Forward To 2015

  March 19, 2012 Alex Woodie

  One hundred was IBM‘s lucky number for 2011. For starters, last year was the 100th year that Big Blue has been in business. The company also got back to the $100 billion revenue mark for the first time since the economy imploded in 2008. In its recently released annual report, IBM discusses how it intends to replicate the market success that IBM had in 2011, and keep it going through 2015. In her introductory letter to shareholders, new IBM CEO Ginni Rometty touted IBM’s recent success. She threw out a lot of numbers that undoubtedly impress stock analysts,

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• As I See It: No, It’s Not Painless

  March 19, 2012 Victor Rozek

  In the hierarchy of bad work days, having a colleague hurl herself out of a fourth story window ranks right up there near the top. Though thankfully rare, workplace suicide is on the rise, a reflection of mounting desperation as, for many, economic options run out. A single telecommunications company in France (the former employer of the fourth floor flyer) had a horrific, mind-boggling string of 23 employee suicides. The company had been busy restructuring–a pallid euphemism for discarding workers–and apparently forgot it was altering lives as well as spreadsheets. Back home, where compassion and corporation have become all but

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• COMMON Turning Up the Value

  March 19, 2012 Dan Burger

  Whenever you think about the community of IBM i users who are not only advocates of the IBM midrange platform, but are also advocating training and education that keeps up with technology, the COMMON user group comes to mind. COMMON has had its ups and downs and has had to make adjustments, just like the individuals and the companies in the community have to. In about six weeks COMMON will host its annual conference. The organization’s president, Pete Massiello, promises it will once again showcase the positive turnaround. Registrations are exceeding what was on the books for the 2011 conference

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• Townsend Security CEO John Earl Steps Down

  March 19, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Last week, security software vendor Townsend Security said that John Earl, the company’s president and CEO for nearly three years and a beloved and well-known OS/400 and IBM security expert, had to step down for health reasons from those positions. Many of you know Earl from his years at PowerTech and all of the work he has done for COMMON and other local user groups over the years, and it goes without saying that Earl is one of the most important and influential people in our IBM i community. This is why he ended up running Townsend Security. Patrick Townsend,

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• Quadrant And Mainline Seal Partner Deal

  March 19, 2012 Dan Burger

  Quadrant Software, makers of document management and fax products for IBM i and other platforms, and Mainline Information Systems, one of the largest resellers of IBM Power Systems, mainframes, and System x machines in the United States, have a new partnership. Mainline gains a product line that fits in well with the infrastructure its customers have in place and that will meet customer needs relating to business process issues, productivity, improved efficiencies and lower costs. Quadrant benefits by gaining access to a new and quite large customer base that has come to trust the Mainline name and way

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• Obama Encourages Engineering Students To Stay With It

  March 19, 2012 Jenny Thomas

  Getting an engineering degree is hard. The work involved in obtaining one is not to be taken lightly, but the rewards awaiting graduates are worth the effort required. That was the consensus among panel members at a live Facebook Webcast last week, which was held in conjunction with the launch of Stay With It, an online resource to support engineering students in an effort to increase the number of engineering graduates from U.S. universities and colleges. The Stay With It program is the result of an initiative from the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, in partnership with Intel,

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• IBM Starts Refurbishing Power Systems Machines In China

  March 19, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM makes Power Systems machinery in China to sell to customers in certain parts of the globe, and now the company has opened up a refurbishing center that will be taking back machines in trade and refurbishing them for resale in the country. IBM has opened up a server and PC refurbishing center near one of its factories in Shenzhen, China, which will be run by the company’s Global Asset Recovery Services division, part of its Global Financing group. The facility is starting out modestly and will only represent a tiny portion of the iron that Global Asset Recovery Services

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• Disk Array Sales Keep Expanding Despite Drive Shortages

  March 19, 2012 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The relentless pace of disk capacity improvements and the impressive price/performance gains with every new generation of disk were more than offset by rapacious demand for storage to help the disk array business grow in the final quarter of 2011. And despite disk shortages due to the flooding in Thailand (where about a quarter of the world’s disks are made) and jittery economies in the United States and Western Europe. According to the box counters at Gartner, sales of external disk arrays that make use of controllers (as distinct from internal disk arrays like those inside of many X86

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