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Today, we'll cover the price benefits of recycling old tin and some new PTFs you gotta get. I was going to say something about IBM naming the line of servers called the CanuckleHead after me, but it was a groaner. And I'm sure my editor will leave that in.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

IBM really wants you upgraded to Power7 and Power7+ iron and subsequently away from IBM i 5.4. How much so? Effective March 18, 2013, IBM's trade-in value for older machines running IBM i 5.4 have been updated according to announcement letter 313-025. The rebates are based not on what older tin you turn in, but actually what you upgrade to.

 

Hardware eligible to upgrade are all 940x (feature codes 5028 through 5033), 8203-E4A (FC 0533), and 8204-E8A (FC 0533).

 

What's kind of odd is the Power7 rebates are deeper than the Power7+ rebates. For instance, the 6-way Power7 3.0 GHz 720 Express rebate is $4000, but the 6-way Power7+ 3.6 GHz 720 Express is only $400.

Read more ...

This week, I'm talking about the SWMA price increase and subsequent reduction; new collaboration options, including expanded support for IBM I; COMMON 2013; and Power Systems manufacturing going south of the border.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

As I covered in my last article, IBM i software maintenance (i.e., SWMA) prices were scheduled to go up as of next month. But before customers could say "there goes the budget," or more likely afterward, the cost increase was declared null and void by IBM. That's a good thing if you're an IBM i customer as the announcement of the cost increase came on short notice when most of us already had our budget plans laid out for the year. Larger customers with systems in higher processor tiers and many active cores would've been on the hook for a significant amount of scratch.

Read more ...

In this issue, we're covering IBM i security monitoring, mobility with IBM MobileFirst, and SWMA price increases.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

With all the recent great news surrounding IBM i Technology Refresh 6, the new Power7+ iron, and IBM's precision-like Power Systems targeting of the SMB x86-64 market, it's a bit of a downer to have to lead in with a "you have to pay more" story.

 

According to IBM announcement letter 313-006, IBM i software maintenance prices are going up April 16, 2013.

Read more ...

On February 5, 2013, IBM announced a slew of new Power7+ systems and, like divine clockwork, IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 6.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

Since most of us can take advantage of IBM i 7.1 TR6, let's jump right into that, shall we? But first, I want to clear up something. I caught wind of a conversation the other day in which one person lamented something like IBM "should release IBM i 7.2 already. IBM i 7.1 has been out for three years!"

 

Why? Does the number matter? Not really.

Read more ...

IBM announces IBM Connections 4.5, and BlackBerry gets into the ring to reclaim enterprise mobile market share.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

 Last week I left for Orlando, far away from the -33C temperatures of Eastern Canada, to attend the premier social collaboration conference of 2013: IBM Connect. While "social" and "cloud" were the dominant themes of Lotusphere 2012, "exceptional experience" is the prevalent theme of 2013. IBM is driving fully integrated solutions designed to provide an exceptional experience to your company's customers, partners, users, and everyone in between.

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IBM adds Ingram Micro and Tech Data as distributors, predicts fashion trends, and increases trade-in values for old hardware. Plus more. We're all over the map this week!

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

Tech Data and Ingram Micro, according to a Partnerworld memo, have signed distribution deals with IBM.

Bill Donohue, the author of the memo and Vice President of IBM's North America Business Partner and Midmarket Sales, says the goal is "to expand [IBM's] enterprise business reach to both traditional IT solution providers and to global ISVs."

Read more ...

With Samba 4.0, the potential is there to decommission Microsoft Active Directory servers, their associated virtual machines, and more.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

Just because you have an Active Directory domain on your network doesn't mean you need to have a number of Windows servers as domain controllers. Not anymore. As per the release on the Samba project Web site, Samba 4.0 is the first free, open-source software with the capabilities to replace or work alongside Microsoft Active Directory as a fully functional domain controller: "Samba 4.0 comprises an LDAP directory server, Heimdal Kerberos authentication server, a secure Dynamic DNS server, and implementations of all necessary remote procedure calls for Active Directory. Samba 4.0 provides everything needed to serve as an Active Directory Compatible Domain Controller for all versions of Microsoft Windows clients currently supported by Microsoft, including the recently released Windows 8."

Read more ...

Let's dissect two studies that put IBM i at the top of the list for lowest total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, and total amounts of awesome! You want justification? You got it.

steve pitcherWritten by Steve Pitcher

International Technology Group (ITG) recently published two studies that talk about total cost of ownership, total cost of acquisition, risk exposure, cost of downtime, and security/malware considerations for the IBM i. The contents, in general, are things we know already: IBM i on Power Systems is the best platform to run our businesses on because of the cost reductions, consolidation, integration, security, simplicity, and the operating environment's virus resistance. Although some of this is old news, there are some great facts in here, so we need to dissect it a little bit. Why? Have you ever had to justify IBM i to a decision-maker? Wouldn't you love to have some key published information at your disposal? Absolutely. Those platform features I mentioned are a tall order to fill on most systems and may even sound like a bunch of hot air to those outside the IBM i community. Think about it. If you were a Windows administrator and lived only in the Windows world, what would you think if I told you that I could sell you a widely deployed operating system that had no known viruses? You probably wouldn't believe me.

Read more ...

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