• IBM Reverses Course, Keeps S/3X Compilers in i5/OS V5R5

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  The thing about sagas is that they have drama, they tend to go on for a long time, and even when it feels like the tensions that make up the drama are resolved, there is always a sense that it is a fleeting resolution, but a brief respite before the story begins again. So it is with the older compilers that are buried within the i5/OS platform. To cut to the dramatic climax for those of you who are still using the RPG II and COBOL compilers that were compatible with the System/36 and the RPG III and COBOL compilers

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• IBM and Georgia Tech Push Silicon’s Speed Limit up to 500 GHz

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Researchers at IBM and the Georgia Institute of Technology have collaborated in an effort to see how far current silicon-based chip making techniques can be pushed to continue boosting performance of the transistors that make up electronic circuits. Just about every report on IBM-Georgia Tech has said that the two were testing chips, and that they had frozen chips to nearly absolute zero and been able to crank the clock cycles on them to 500 GHz. That was almost correct. First, according to John Cressler, the researcher at Georgia Tech who was doing the work, the two were not testing

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• CCSS Partners with eXystus Technologies in the Philippines

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  System management software provider CCSS said last week that it had inked a deal with eXystus Technologies for the latter to distribute and support the former’s OS/400 and i5/OS tool called the QSystem Management Suite in the Philippines. eXystus Technologies is the first Asian agent for CCSS’ products, and the company said that it was formed to “fill a void” in the technical service offerings in the Philippines when it comes to the System i. The company is based in the capital city of Manila. “Being System i consultants, we are not expert sales reps,” says Edward Soro, senior manager

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• ASNA Invests in Spanish Distribution Partner CaCovai

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Midrange application development tool vendor ASNA last week said that it had made a minority equity investment in CaCovai 400, its distributor in Spain. ASNA sells its Visual RPG and related tools for extending OS/400 and i5/OS applications to the Windows world directly and through a network of almost three dozen international distributors, of which CaCovai is one. CaCovai is located in Barcelona and is run by Carlos Valero; the company also distributes ASNA’s wares in Portugal. ASNA did not specify the financial terms of the equity investment, but it said that CaCovai’s success in Spain in promoting ASNA’s

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• IBM Lets BPs Offer Virtualization Test Drive to SMB Customers

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Virtualization is a pretty esoteric concept, and if IT managers and system administrators are struggling with it, you can imagine how difficult it is for resellers and other system partners to peddle something that is a virtual product, not a physical one. To help make life a little easier for its business partner channel as they try to peddle its various server virtualization products, IBM is rolling out a virtualization test drive in its 40 business partner innovation centers around the globe, which will allow them and their respective partners to come into the centers and play around with the

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• More Than Half of Tech Companies Report Security Breaches

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  High tech companies often talk a good game when it comes to security, but apparently the fact that they are heavily dependent on digital information and connectivity to the outside world means that they are susceptible to security breaches. And they are not doing a very good job protecting themselves. According to a report called Protecting the Digital Assets, which is based on surveys done by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu of 150 companies in the technology, media, and telecommunications industries–so-called TMT firms–more than half of the firms said that they had security breaches of their systems within the prior 12

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• Survey Says CIOs to Boost Hiring in the Third Quarter

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  If you are an MIS manager, you better start thinking about how much of your IT budget you want to dedicate to those new servers and how much you want to squirrel away so you can put a little extra into the paychecks of the employees you want to retain. According to a forecast by Robert Half Technology, which monitors hiring and firing in the information technology sector, chief information officers and MIS managers are expecting a “modest uptick” in hiring in the third quarter, which begins next week. RTI has been monitoring IT hiring on a quarterly basis

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• As I See It: The Great Disconnect

  June 26, 2006 Victor Rozek

  There is a reason why programmers don’t write code on typewriters: disconnecting software from a computer strips it of its utility. Without a machine to run it, the code might still be elegant, but it would no longer be relevant. And no matter how inspired and dedicated the programmer, without that essential connection, the results will be less than favorable. The same can be said for the economy. Like software disconnected from a computer, the economy has become disconnected from the people operating within it, and the results are increasingly unfavorable. In an economic sense, we think we’re typing on

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• Readers React to Project Prometheus System i Effort

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As you might expect, there has been a lot of talk about the Project Prometheus effort to rejuvenate the System i platform since I did my initial story on the secret project two weeks ago. Many of the things that people said in their comments to me about the project were the same kinds of things we have discussed over the years about how to differentiate and peddle this platform. I find the consistency in our views comforting, even if I find the consistency of IBM‘s short-sighted, self-centered behavior–how shall I put this?–freaking annoying. I am a

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• New Director of System i Sales for BPs, ISVs Appointed

  June 26, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  IBM last week announced that it has appointed a new director of sales for the System i platform with regards to the business partner and independent software vendor channel. As has been the case for a number of years, Peter Small, who starts work this week, hails from IBM’s Unix sales team, and Big Blue is hoping that the experience that Small has will help the company and its partners better peddle the i5/OS platform. A year ago, Mark Shearer, general manager of the System i division, appointed Bill Donohue as vice president of worldwide sales for the product line.

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