With so much bad news in the economy for so long, everyone is looking for a little good news. Well, the server business is perking up, and if you think server spending is a leading indicator of IT spending (as I do) and that IT spending is now a key component of all capital spending and therefore a pretty good indicator of how the economies of the world are doing (as I do), then maybe the Great Recession is receding. Maybe things are leveling off and perhaps there is some room for growth, allowing the IT economy in which we

The cost of business computing hasn’t fallen the way the cost of hardware has. The excuse is that a modern computer system does much more than data processing. But what if you only need the basics? What if you only want to write and run RPG programs? It turns out you can get this capability with a 50-dollar RPG package for Windows that will run on any Windows XP box. And if you want a centralized RPG system with 25 seats, you can get it for $250 plus the cost of the hardware. Here’s how to do it.

The thing

Blade servers running the IBM i operating system are few and far between. Why is that? Shouldn’t this technology be slashing into data centers big and small? Apparently not. Or not yet anyway. Just because there’s no rush to get on a blade server doesn’t mean the idea should be written off. But the slow adoption of blades makes me wonder if Zorro would even want one of these.

Zorro, the blade-wielding, masked outlaw, was out of the country, so last week I had a chat with Brad Ford, a blade-wielding, unmasked consultant. I found Ford while perusing the session

The wind yawns, and a long, mournful sigh sails through ancient trees. Slanting rays of sunlight ignite the pink tops of rhododendrons, and illuminate patches of emerald moss underfoot. The sound of water tumbling over stone hums in the distance. Here the lucky and patient may spot elk and deer, owls and hawks, black bear and steelhead.

But for all its natural splendor, this is a place of paradox: beautiful but scarred, healthy yet still healing. Fifteen years ago (a short time in the life of a forest), it was pocked with clearcuts and veined with logging roads; subject to

High availability software maker Maximum Availability has filed a lawsuit against its rival in the high availability/disaster recovery space for iSeries, System i, and Power Systems servers, Vision Solutions, alleging that advertising materials used by Vision Solutions to peddle its various products contain false information that has done damage to Maximum Availability’s business.

Maximum Availability, which is based in Aukland, New Zealand, but which has operations in the United States, filed the lawsuit against Vision Solutions on December 7, 2009, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. The lawsuit names Vision

The importance of software quality and the potential liability for functional flaws and security vulnerabilities was on full display last month when a judge in the United Kingdom ordered a software company to compensate a former customer for the business costs of a failed implementation of a hotel management system. The judge basically overturned the limited liability clause of the vendor’s license agreement–a move that software quality experts and industry analysts say could herald a new wave of litigation and a push to certify applications.

The trouble for Kingsway Hall started soon after going live with Red Sky IT‘s

BluePhoenix Solutions, which sells a variety of legacy application modernization products for IBM midrange and mainframe platforms, was feeling a bit of a crunch in the first quarter ended in March. Business has been tough for BluePhoenix since the Great Recession started in early 2008.

In Q1, BluePhoenix reported revenues of $17.4 million, down 15.4 percent. Operating losses tripled to just under $2 million and the company booked a net loss of $2.2 million, larger than the $1.8 million loss in the year-ago quarter.

“While we are disappointed with the financial results of the first quarter, we have started

Midrange application powerhouse Infor is growing again through acquisitions, this time buying long-time bar code data collection partner Bridgelogix.

Both Infor and Bridgelogix are privately held companies, so the financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bridgelogix was founded in 1999 by Koty Krishna, and the Tulsa, Oklahoma, company was created to provide data collection software for manufacturers and distributors, many of whom were implementing their first real ERP systems at the time.

Over the past decade, Bridgelogix has carved out a niche for itself as the preferred data collection front end of various Infor ERP suites, including

You helped COMMON Europe, the European IBM midrange user group, rank 37 issues in the first iteration of the Top Concerns ranking process, for which Ranga Deshpande, vice president and events manager and Top Concerns project leader, thanks you profusely. But there is still one step to go, and Deshpande needs you to take a few moments and help out again.

COMMON Europe is responsible for putting together a global To-Do list for Big Blue and its Power Systems-i platform, and is working on its fifth Top Concerns survey. The survey, which you can take at this link,

The wise learn to adapt and adapt to learning. The hottest skills from 10 years ago, in many instances, are only lukewarm today. And 20-year-old skills are pretty stale in a technology-intensive career. Some survive while avoiding technological changes and continuous learning, but that’s like walking instead of taking the bus–you’ll likely get where you want to go, but most everyone else will have been there and moved on by then.

The capabilities of the IBM Power Systems running i/OS far exceed the capabilities of the IBM AS/400 running OS/400. The technology has evolved. So the question becomes: Have your