• All Your IBM i Base Are Belong To Us

  December 16, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  In last week’s issue of The Four Hundred, I gave you my best estimate of what the current distribution of machines by processor family and software group was based on some information I have heard through the grapevine from IBM and my own estimates. The data showed a number of remarkable things, among them the fact that there are some pretty old machines out there in the installed base despite the massive improvements in price/performance with successive generations of Power-based systems in the past decade. What can be done to ensure that this base of customers, which accounts for

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• IBM i In The Middle Of Infrastructure Overhaul

  December 16, 2013 Dan Burger

  Emerging markets are the accelerator and brakes on the IT spending bus. Countries in Latin America, India, Russia, and particularly in Asia have are expected to drive IT growth to a much greater degree than the mature markets, where businesses are advancing with one foot on the brake pedal. IBM, like any other multinational organization knows where the treasure is hidden. And the IBM i benefits from globalization just like everything else. Asia has mature markets–Japan and Hong Kong being the prime examples–where the economy is more in line with the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, which have

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• 2013: An IBM i Year In Review

  December 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  As we get ready for 2014, it is worth taking a look back at 2013 and seeing the year that was in the IBM i midrange marketplace. From new servers and operating systems to new security flaws and new business ventures, it was an eventful year. So sit back, grab a beverage, and prepare to reminisce on the IBM i year that was. In January, computer security was a front-page news item after several critical vulnerabilities were discovered in Java, including a zero-day vulnerability that hackers were actively exploiting in lieu of patches from Oracle. It turns out that

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• As I See It: Traditions

  December 16, 2013 Victor Rozek

  It’s during the Christmas season that I miss my parents most. All I have left of them are memories and an old album of faded pictures; familiar faces frozen in time like insects caught in amber, remnants of a different era. Each year, as I look around the holiday table, it’s poignant to notice not only who is there, but who is missing. Among the gifts passed down to me, was a ritual which we practiced on Christmas Eve. Like many customs and rituals, this one arrived with immigrants–my parents were both born in Poland–and it was maintained as a

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• Enterprise Social Networking Finds Integration Is A Hoot

  December 16, 2013 Dan Burger

  IBM has a passion for social media. It’s social networking platform, Connections, is the nucleus of the social strategy that has lifted Big Blue to the leader in enterprise social software market share, as determined by IDC earlier this year. Enterprise social networking puts the emphasis on collaboration and, with a variety of social channels that enhance collaboration, the integration of those channels becomes part of the picture. Integration has arrived. In order to tap into the full potential of enterprise social networking, the channels need to be a combination of internal and external avenues. Connections handles the internal collaborative

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• Reader Feedback On RPG And Java At The Crossroads

  December 16, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Hey, Dan: In reading your article on open software and the IBM i platform, you said: “One of the faulty labels spray painted on the IBM i is that it’s a bad neighborhood for open source.” I just spent a very frustrating week trying to figure out how to call a PHP program from an RPG program, so I can understand how people can feel that way. I was able to call the program and pass parameters to it, but the output from the PHP program remained behind some wall in Qshell and was unavailable to the RPG program.

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• Quarterly Server Sales Drop Nearly 4 Percent, IDC Says

  December 16, 2013 Alex Woodie

  Continued soft demand for servers around the world resulted in a 3.7 percent decline in sales during the third quarter, according to IDC. A poor showing by IBM, which suffered a 19.4 percent decline in factory revenues during the quarter, enabled Hewlett-Packard to regain the title as the world’s top server maker. This year has been tough on server makers, as they struggle to maintain revenues in an extremely competitive market for the commodity X86 servers that dominate the server landscape. Strong demand for low-end X86 servers actually increased year-over-year sales of these types of systems by 3.5

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• IBM Inks $115 Million Flex System Deal With EU

  December 16, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  I have been saying for a while that anything that helps the Power Systems line get stronger helps the IBM i platform live longer. I have a new phrase for you. Anything that helps the Flex Systems converged boxes sell helps IBM i as well. With IBM putting money and mouth behind its Flex Systems platform, and Big Blue needing to stay in the X86 system racket to be a relevant system supplier, all of IBM’s customers need for the Flex Systems to compete and win deals in the market. It is with this in mind that we tell you

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• Coming Soon: Connect 2014 (a.k.a. Lotusphere)

  December 16, 2013 Dan Burger

  The IBM Connect 2014 conference is coming up next month January 26-30 in Orlando, Florida. For many years this conference was known as Lotusphere, but that changed last year shortly after IBM dropped the Lotus brand. Although the name of the event has changed, the emphasis remains the same. This is all about collaborative software, with a big dose of social media, plus mobile and cloud computing. Less publicized but still a significant portion of the event is geared toward Notes/Domino development skills, certification testing, and product roadmap insights that include the business partners as well as IBM. Traditionally, Lotusphere

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• IBM i Installed Base Dominated By Vintage Iron

  December 9, 2013 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If the IBM i-Power Systems platform was up for an award for longevity, it would actually have to be given two awards. One trophy would be for persevering as the last platform standing from the Minicomputer Revolution back in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. And the second medal would be for machines that stay in the field for an incredibly, almost unbelievably, long time. We all know this instinctively and anecdotally, having heard many of the legends of the AS/400 and its progeny out in the field. Stories of machines being sheet-rocked behind a wall or stacked over

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