In September, IBM published its third biennial study of chief executive officer outlooks and attitudes. This study paid particular attention to the midmarket; companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and prime targets for the i platform. IBM found that midmarket CEOs have similar concerns and yearnings as their counterparts in larger organizations, but they expect greater change and often feel an even stronger urge to seek new opportunities. These attitudes are part of a growing trend among organizations of all sizes to envision a future with wide horizons, but this year’s study might have defined a zenith of optimism.

The

Since 2000, the letter “i” in the IBM midrange has stood for “integration,” the key attribute, according to Big Blue, of its AS/400 and successor platforms. But in the modern IBM, the i stands for a lot of things, including international and, lately, India. And considering that the top brass have a love affair of sorts with India, it doesn’t really come as a surprise that the company is launching its “Blue Business” Smart Cube platform in that country first rather than here in the United States.

IBM’s public relations machine didn’t want any of us in North America or

The dependence of business on information technology has never been stronger. Planning and investment in one requires the same focus on the other. For some, that link between business and IT may feel a lot like handcuffs. Building a business demands the full focus of some organizations, and although IT may be recognized for providing competitive advantages, it can be a distraction that upper management prefers to turn over to someone else. IBM is happy to help.

Getting the full benefit of IT resources is sometimes better left to others. Business continuity, which includes such things as backup and recovery,

It is difficult to find the silver lining in the daily litany of financial disasters and desperate, ineffective bailouts. Somber pronouncements of impending help notwithstanding, the economy has been crippled, and the greed of the few will impose suffering on the many. If, however, there is a ray of hope in which the IT community is entitled to bathe, it is the fact that IT professionals are–generally speaking–intelligent.

Don’t for a moment discount the economic value of intelligence (especially when coupled with honesty). Increasingly, it is a virtue in short supply. Perhaps the most significant division in the country–more serious

Zend Technologies, the commercial entity behind the open source PHP programming language and its related development tools, has delivered a new release of its suite of PHP tools. Zend Framework 1.7 includes a general release of the new DB2/400 adapter introduced earlier this year, which should improve the interoperability of PHP applications and DB2/400 data. The update also includes various other AJAX-related enhancements.

Zend provided an early release of the DB2/400 adapter with the delivery of Zend Core for IBM i 2.6 in September. At the time, Zend said the new adapter would provide better, faster, and more

A few weeks ago, IBM offered customers using its AIX variants of its Power5, Power5+, and Power6 machines discounts on processor activations for installed iron, and offered customers with Power5 and Power5+ machines in the System p 590 and 595 machines discounts. These discounts were as high as 60 percent on older Power5 and Power5+ iron and 45 percent on Power6 iron. Now, customers buying new Power Systems iron with Power6 processors are being offered rebates to make a sale a bit easier to sell to upper management in a jittery economy.

On a Power Systems 570 machine (that’s a

Only a few weeks ago, we told you how the analysts at IDC had trimmed their forecasts for global IT spending. Well, this week, IDC is providing a little more detail about the IT spending situation across the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, and the news is not exactly good.

Blame the economic meltdown, which started off with the United States and its careless lending and securitization of mortgages but which was emulated by and financed by inventors across the globe. IDC is now projecting that IT spending across the EMEA region will only grow by 3 percent

Midrange ERP application software provider Lawson Software took some financial hits in the past year as it had to write off some investments it had made in sophisticated financial instruments, and now the economic slowdown that has by and large been caused by the economic hangover from similar investments made by the market at large has come boomeranging around and forced Lawson to do layoffs.

When an economic collapse is caused by the assumption of too much risk by the broader markets, we always pay one, two, three, or four times over for our exuberance, and we almost never learn

Swedish ERP software maker International Business Systems is trying to get some traction in the midrange, and is looking to embrace and push the Windows platform without abandoning its installed base of i customers. As all midrange shops know, success in the midrange is usually driven by success in the channel, and that is why IBS has announced that it is looking to build out its global channel.

To that end, IBS has announced that as part of its strategic restructuring back in September (see IBS Picks Windows Instead of i as Strategic ERP Platform for more on that), the

It’s been a long journey, but the Traveler has finally arrived. IBM‘s Lotus Notes users–particularly those who count on mobile access and have been wishing upon star after star that an option to Windows mobile devices would be available–know what I’m talking about. Nokia S60 smartphones, which already support Microssoft Exchange, are about to deliver Lotus Notes collaboration functionality that includes e-mail, calendaring, and other applications such as an address book, journal, and to-do lists. Mobility options for Notes users had been limited to laptops.

According to IBM, there are more than 140 million licensed users of Lotus Notes.