The fifth annual global software piracy study finds signs that enforcement is working, but emerging markets are getting their start on PCs with unlicensed software.

By Chris Smith

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) released its fifth annual global PC software piracy study this week, and the numbers are mind-boggling.

According to the study, which was conducted by IDC, one of the industry's leading global market research and forecasting firms, losses from piracy reached nearly $48 billion in 2007, some $8 billion more than the prior year. There was an optimistic note in the report, however, since piracy was found to be declining in 67 of the 108 countries included in the report. Even though only eight countries had piracy rates that were increasing, they also happened to be countries where PC use is growing rapidly.

Through the venture, Big Blue hopes to regain the companies that flocked to the AS/400 20 years ago.

By Lee Kroon

Last Thursday, IBM unveiled an initiative that could utterly change the way the company markets and delivers applications to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Then again, the enterprise, which IBM calls "Blue Business," could turn out to be a fascinating yet largely unsuccessful venture on the computer giant's part. Either way, Blue Business is an effort that bears watching, as it could have a dramatic impact on System i users (or whatever we decide to call ourselves now) over the next several years.

The company's emphasis on green IT is designed to lower users' energy costs while boosting sales of its valued technology.

By Chris Smith

IBM introduced a series of new business initiatives last week that will be a roadmap for the company and its Business Partners for at least the next several years. The plans call for aggressively reaching out to small and medium businesses (SMBs) here and abroad with simpler, more energy-efficient solutions that can be deployed quickly and easily.

Conserving energy is more than a slogan today; it's a way to affect the bottom line.

By Chris Smith

There seems to be some debate about whether it makes sense to develop green, or environmentally sound, business practices. I love it when I read in a competing publication, or any other computer magazine, that the writer thinks that "going green" is a fad and that savvy business leaders will make decisions based on bottom-line economics, not whether a policy saves energy or reduces a company's carbon footprint. Hello? Have you not noticed the price of oil lately? I say I love to see such articles because it means that readers of these other publications will be coming over to subscribe to our own in a couple of months when they realize the level of thinking that they are getting in their current read.

"i for Business" is attracting community and vendor support.

By Thomas M. Stockwell

The announcement on April 2, 2008, that IBM has created the new Power Server brand, combining both the System i and the System p, took few analysts by surprise. But a key question still remained: How would IBM's loyal System i community react?

Though we're aging, embracing change may be a ticket to staying young.

By Chris Smith

The System i has attracted an interesting mix of individuals, a fact brought home only too clearly last week by the death of Al Barsa Jr. and the reactions people have had to his passing. This is a tight-knit community, and the outpouring of grief that has been expressed since the loss of one of its leaders is remarkable.

The company announces three new POWER6 servers along with special financing.

By Chris Smith

IBM introduced a new generation of POWER6 servers last week at COMMON and consolidated the System i and System p brands onto one hardware platform.

The new servers, to be packaged under the umbrella title of IBM Power Systems, will run one or all of the company's three major SMB operating systems: i5/OS, AIX, and Linux.  The company's flagship integrated platform i5/OS, whose name was more closely affiliated with the POWER5 chip, has been renamed simply IBM i. The company also said that V6R1 would be renamed to 6.1 in accordance with the industry's conventional naming protocols.

By bringing two product lines together, IBM created exciting possibilities and a few short-term headaches for its customers.

By Lee Kroon

When IBM unified the System i and System p last week, it did much more than change the nameplates on the cabinets of its POWER processor-based servers. It launched massive changes to how it prices, packages, and goes to market with those servers. While some of those changes will become obvious to everyone in short order, others will become apparent only over time. With that in mind, here are seven thoughts about how IBM's announcement will transform life as we know it within the System i community.