Replacing chaos with calm while solving the mysteries of computer voodoo could earn you a pretty good reputation in the which-planet-am-I-on world of IBM midrange computing. It’s not that you’re more likely to get zapped here in the i zone than in any other IT fun house, but coming to grips with things like managed services and cloud computing have their own i-flavored outcomes here. Even for the little guy who is wondering how he fits into the MSP and cloud action.

Larry Bolhuis has an idea or two about the MSP and cloud computing topics and a few other

It’s time for system administrators to give up security-related tasks and hand them over to a dedicated security administrators in IBM i shops, says Skyview Partners. While the jack-of-all trades approach has succeeded in keeping costs down, the risks of losing data are becoming too great to rely on the skills of a generalist, says the company, which just published a new guide describing the role of an IBM i security administrator.

“Security administration can no longer be lost in the list of things that a system administrator is supposed to do on a regular basis,” says Skyview president

Big Blue is not quite as ready as it may have seemed to get out of the X86 server racket, at least not judging by the launch last week of the NextScale server line. And maybe, just maybe, the NextScale line of minimalist machines will sport current and future Power processors to give service providers and cloud builders a cheaper and denser alternative than the Flex System chassis announced a year and a half ago to build Power-based clouds. The future of the IBM i business may depend upon it, so getting Power processors inside of the NextScale nodes is

Thomas J. Watson started using the slogan “Think” while he was still at National Cash Register. He took it with him to CTR, which became IBM. It’s still part of IBM lore. “Think” has outlasted the typewriter, once a ubiquitous desktop symbol of IBM. “Think” is a meme, an intellectual artifact broadcast by cultural intercourse. IBM’s meme opened minds and doors to computing. Today, a different meme is the harbinger of technological progress in the white-collar workplace. It is the Staples slogan, “That was easy,” and its corporate curio kin, a red button that says “Easy.”

For more than

You’re not alone. CIOs, CTOs, IT department managers, and other executives wrestling with decisions affecting business strategies are increasingly turning to peers and partners to plan and implement their IT tactical strategies. At the Key Information Systems Summit last week, the core dump on topics–from cloud computing to business analytics to executive development facilitated by subject matter experts and IT industry thought leaders–was impressive.

The format for the summit was round-table discussion groups of 12 to 15 people with expert facilitators, and is a far better method for strategy discussions, exchanging lessons learned, and displaying battle scars. The participants include

After years of cutbacks and doing more with less, there is no doubt that IT departments around the United States are ready to start growing again. But it seems many companies are still reluctant to start throwing money into IT as they wait and see whether the economy is truly stabilizing.

The analysts at Janco Associates have been deciphering the latest numbers in the IT slice of the job market, and although August did see a modest gain of 7,000 new IT jobs, many companies continue to wait for the green light from executive management to increase spending.

Victor Janulaitis,

The tug of war between the Xeon and Power processor lines from Intel and IBM continued last week as the largest chip maker in the world got its “Ivy Bridge-EP” Xeon E5-2600 v2 processors into the field.

IBM, of course, has just finished rolling out its eight-core Power7+ chips across the Power Systems and Flex Systems lines, and only last month was previewing the capabilities of the future 12-core Power8 chips due maybe in the middle of next year. Now it is Intel’s turn, and it is starting with the rollout of chips for the workhorse two-socket servers that dominate

IBM and the major user groups like COMMON are not the only ones that bring together experts and users to talk about technology and business trends as they relate to shops who use Power Systems iron. Help/Systems, which is very likely the largest independent software vendor in the IBM i marketplace and which has been expanding into Unix and Linux in recent years, is taking its Power7 Trends and Tech show on the road, possibly to a city near you.

Tom Huntington, who is vice president of technical services at Help/Systems, will be hosting four events to go over

It is the fall, and IBM is trying to wrap up its third quarter in two weeks. So don’t expect a lot of wheeling and dealing through formal announcements. Depending on how the third quarter goes, IBM could keep the dealing more informal, but if it has specific goals and wants to rein in both its salespeople and resellers from getting too carried away, it will do some formal deals in the fourth quarter. In the meantime, you need to be aware of some tweaks to existing deals and price changes on Flex System iron.

First up, in announcement letter

Big Blue is always rebalancing its workforce, which is a euphemism for layoffs at the company, and it is also looking to add to its portfolio of products through acquisitions or internal development as well as divesting itself of products it no longer feels are core to its business. Last week, IBM’s Global Services did a divestiture, something we don’t see very often.

Specifically, IBM sold off its business process outsourcing services business to a company called Concentrix, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Synnex. According to Synnex, this business generates more than $1.2 billion providing customer