Volume 15, Number 43 - October 30, 2006 Archives

Sun Getting Ready to Open Source Java

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Sun Microsystems, the server and operating system maker that also created the Java programming language and the Java Virtual Machine that supports those applications, Sun’s top brass confirmed at the Oracle OpenWorld event in San Francisco last week that it is between two and three months away from taking Java open source.

In 2005, Sun took its Solaris 10 Unix operating system and its Java Enterprise System middleware stack open source. It had already acquired the open source StarOffice office automation suite and given it to the community as OpenOffice. Sun even went so far as to open

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IBM Gives Its Seal of Approval to Key Information Systems’ Innovation Center

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Key Information Systems, one of the dominant resellers of System i products in the Western half of the United States, has received Big Blue’s blessing for its Business Partner Innovation Center, which is located at Key’s new headquarters in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills.

Key is downstream from Avnet‘s Partner Solutions unit, which is part of that company’s Technology Solutions distribution business. Key has been an IBM business partner since 2000 and an Avnet reseller since 1999, and has won IBM’s Beacon Award for being the top business partner in its region. And like IBM, Key

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Magic Software Announces Global Restructuring Plan

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Application development and integration software maker Magic Software announced last week that it is working on a plan to restructure its business.

Magic Software is traded on both the Tel Aviv and Nasdaq stock markets, and after it made the announcement last Wednesday, the company’s stock price rose by 10 percent. The company’s sales have been down slightly in the first half of 2006, and costs have pushed it into the red ink. Sales for the first half of 2006 came to $30.4 million at Magic Software, but the company also booked a $1.5 million loss.

“Magic regularly examines its

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Server Reseller Avnet Shows Good Numbers in Fiscal Q1

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

As one of the largest distributors of electronic components and a master resellers of IT systems that sits between the largest vendors and their downstream reseller partners, the financial ups and downs of Avnet are a good indicator of what is really going on in the IT economy. And, if Avnet’s first quarter of fiscal 2007 is any indication, the IT economy did pretty good in the third calendar quarter. But the fourth calendar quarter could be tougher than many expect.

For the quarter ended September 30, Avnet said that it had sales of $3.65 billion, up 11.6 percent over

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IBM Researchers Borrow from Mother Nature to Cool Chips

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Power and cooling issues are taking center stage in the data center these days, and researchers at IBM working in its Zurich, Switzerland, laboratories are looking to help from Mother Nature to teach them how to better cool the chips that are going into computers.

The fastest processors on the market today are basically hotplates that happen to do computing (yes, that is hyperbole), and while no one is suggesting converting a supercomputer cluster into a grill at the local McDonalds (at least not yet), there are other ways to attack the cooling issue. (Actually, IBM says that chip thermal

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Sun Getting Ready to Open Source Java

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

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As I See It: Behavioral Redlining

October 30, 2006 Victor Rozek

“We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files; we’d like to help you learn to help yourself.”

–Simon and Garfunkel

Ever since people began gathering information about each other, the gatherers have used the data to control and punish the gatherees. King Herod, for example, used census data to hunt down families with infants hoping to preempt the coming of Christ by killing all of the male babies in Bethlehem. For centuries thereafter, birth records were used to determine social status–noble or commoner, free or slave, tax beneficiary or tax payer-and to keep common

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Who’s Using Linux on the System i?

October 30, 2006 Mary Lou Roberts

IBM first announced the availability of Linux on the iSeries in May 2001–more than five years ago. With great fanfare, Big Blue has consistently touted this Linux capability as a means for shops to realize cost savings and simplicity by capitalizing on the huge (outside the System i community) movement towards open source software and through server consolidation. All the appropriate heads nodded at the time, and certainly no one is arguing that the System i’s ability to run Linux or other operating system partitions is in any way a bad thing. Yet it’s unclear just how many System i

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VP of System i Marketing Talks Strategy

October 30, 2006 Dan Burger and Alex Woodie

Elaine Lennox is happy and excited to have a job that comes with a uniform. It’s red and white with concentric circles and a big blue bull’s eye in the middle of her back. Most people would describe it as a target. But Lennox, who also wears the title of vice president of marketing for the System i division at IBM, isn’t hiding from anyone. She’s used to the rock throwers, the outspoken critics with pointy sticks, and the heat about below average marketing of the platform.

Lennox has a marketing budget that a lot of us believe is

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SoftLanding Systems Acquired By CICS Specialist Unicom Systems

October 30, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

Another cornerstone company in the i5/OS and OS/400 ecosystem has been bought by an outsider. Late last week, SoftLanding Systems, the Peterborough, New Hampshire, provider of software change management and related development tools for the System i platform, announced that it has been acquired by Unicom Systems, a company based in Mission Hills, California, that has carved out a strong niche for itself in the mainframe market and is looking for new markets in which to grow.

Both SoftLanding and Unicom are privately held companies, so the financial details of the transaction were not announced. With the exception

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