System iNetwork

February 8, 2010 12:29 PM

POWER7 Announced, IBM i Support Ready for GA

Ahead of most industry expectations, IBM announced POWER7-based Power Systems today. Basically, IBM is delivering a huge leap in capacity, virtualization, and energy efficiency through three new POWER7-based midrange systems, the Power 750, 770, and 780. Best yet, IBM i will be available on these news systems from day one, which makes POWER7 the first IBM Power Systems processor technology generation to support all of IBM's core operating systems at GA.

"Quite frankly, this is one of the biggest announcements that IBM has made in years, and POWER7 is going to have a major impact on the industry, and I'm delighted that IBM i customers are included in this launch on this astonishing new technology," says Ian Jarman, manager of Power Systems Software.

"This is of great significance to our IBM i customers because this is one of the things that has changed as we have come into the new Power Systems organization -- that we bring technology to market for our three top tier operating systems together," Jarman adds.

That's right, Jarman is gushing here, and for good reason beyond the immediate support for IBM i--it's not hyperbole to suggest that HP and Sun-Oracle have been dealt a pretty big blow with POWER7, and IBM overall seems quite excited about it. As long as IBM prices Power Systems competitively, the new systems that IBM is promoting to "Power your planet" should garner a lot of attention around the world, and even before today's announcement, at least one analyst believes that POWER7 might drive Itanium and SPARC out of the market.

Competition aside, POWER7 chips now boast:

• 4, 6 or 8 cores per socket
• 3.0 to 4.14 GHz
• Up to 4 threads per core
• Integrated eDRAM L3 Cache
• Dynamic Energy Optimization

"What you're going to see with POWER7, we're going to deliver more cores and more performance per core," Jarman says. Better yet, IBM is delivering workload optimizing features that it says make POWER7 number one in both transaction and throughput computing.

"This is one of the key things with Power, not only do we have fantastic performance, we have the ability to adjust performance according to different workloads, for transaction processing, for example, or for throughput computing where you need the highest performance from each core," Jarman says.

IBM has introduced two new workload optimization features, TurboCore, which is for max per core performance for databases that lets customers boot the system with fewer active cores (that then use the full cache on the chip), and MaxCore, which is for parallelization and high capacity.

"Most of our customers will be more interested in having all the cores active because most IBM i customers are interested in transaction processing rather than throughput computing, so MaxCore will be more relevant," Jarman explains.

IBM also is delivering improvements with intelligent threads, cache, and energy optimization, along with Active Memory Expansion for more memory for SAP, and solid state drives for blistering fast I/O access.

The New Systems

Today IBM announced three new systems of interest to IBM i customers, the Power 750, 770, and 780. Obviously, IBM has an new 7-oriented naming scheme for Power Systems.

"This is critical to understand. In POWER7, we've gone to a multi-core design, highly energy efficient, and yet we've still delivered more performance per core," Jarman notes. "This has really changed the parameters in the industry for chip design, performance, and energy efficiency." To put this in perspective, a Power 570 running with 16 cores at 5.0 GHz is bested by a new POWER7-based Power 780 running with the same number of cores at just 3.86 GHz.

The Power 750:

• 4 Socket 4U
• 6 or 8 cores per socket
• 3.0 to 3.55 GHz
• Energy-Star Qualified (first Energy Start certified RISC system)
• Up to 181,000 CPW

Compared to a POWER6 550, the core-to-core performance gain is 26 percent, jumping up to 377 percent if all 32 cores are used.

The Power 770:

• 12 or 16 core 4U Nodes
• Up to 4 Nodes per system
• 3.1 and 3.5 GHz
• Capacity on Demand
• Enterprise RAS
• Up to 292,700 CPW

Compared to a POWER6 570, the core-to-core performance gain is 14 percent, jumping up to 277 percent if all 64 cores are used.

The Power 780:

• New Modular High-End
• Up to 64 Cores
• TurboCore
• 3.86 or 4.14 GHz
• Up to 343,050 CPW
• Capacity on Demand
• Enterprise RAS
• 24x7 Warranty
• PowerCare

Compared to a POWER6 570, the core-to-core performance gain is 35 percent, jumping up to 342 percent if all 64 cores are used.

Upgrade Paths

IBM says Power 570s can be upgraded to Power 770 or 780 on June 4, 2010. As for IBM's current Power 520 customers, IBM says it plans to provide upgrade paths in 2010 from the POWER6 Power 520 2 and 4-core servers to next generation POWER7 processor-based entry servers. IBM hasn't provided a more specific timeline for its popular 520 line yet, though.

As for the big 595s, IBM says it plans to provide an upgrade path from the current IBM Power 595 server with 12X I/O to IBM's next-generation POWER7 processor-based high-end server, and the upgrade is planned as a simple replacement of the processor books and two system controllers with new POWER7 components, within the existing system frame. This will happen in 2010, but IBM hasn't been more specific yet--but there are a couple of very interesting nuggets.

First, the high-end POWER7 server will boast up to 256 POWER7 processor cores, and second, it'll be designed to operate within the same physical footprint and energy envelope of the current 64-core Power 595 server (which, when you think about it, is pretty darn sweet). Third, the POWER7 big iron will also include a high-voltage DC power option, and fourth, enterprises with multiple systems leveraging PowerVM Live Partition Mobility may use this function to maintain application availability during the upgrade process.

More to Come

There's a lot more, of course, including some interesting moves by IBM to promote POWER7 and its Power System line as the go-to servers to "Power your planet", which ties into IBM's much broader "Smarter Planet" initiative. Stay tuned.

Posted by cmaxcer on February 8, 2010 at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

February 3, 2010 10:47 AM

IBM i on a Blade Makes the Cut for Dancerace

UK-based Dancerace designs, builds, and supports powerful, reliable, affordable, and easy to deploy invoice finance management software. That's all well and good, but for IBM i pros, there's a more interesting angle to the company: Dancerace has been successfully running IBM i on POWER-based blades.

I caught up with Anthony Avison, chief executive for Dancerace, for an illuminating Q&A.

Q: Why did Dancerace first get into IBM i on a blade? Which chassis and blade did you choose?

A: Dancerace is a software house building receivables finance software (factoring, invoice discounting, and variants) for the global market since the early 90's. From the mid-90's we also started providing Internet access and data interchange for borrowers as a hosted service for our clients, and thus began our need for a robust and scaleable server farm. In recent years the back office IBM i products we sell also became a 'cloud' product as our hosting facilities improved. At the end of the evolution we had a mixed bag of iSeries computers: 800's, 520's and a fairly large 525. All this had to be mirrored to our secondary site for high availability, so that was a lot of kit.

We needed to give each of our hosted clients a separate server partition because they are financial institutions and need that apparent and actual separation and security, and in any case are located around the world in diverse time zones with often conflicting backup regimes. Getting the per-partition cost to a commercial level was proving very difficult within the physical partition paradigm used on older servers so what we were looking for was virtualization and simple expansion. The announcement of the Power Blades with VIOS supporting i logical partitions looked exactly what we wanted. Our IBM Partner in the UK, Real Solutions (now Imtech) were very helpful, as were a whole raft of people within IBM in the UK and in Rochester, and we modeled how we could get a configuration that would work for us.
 
We ended up with the 'H' BladeCenter chassis, with JS12's each running seven i5/OS partitions. Storage was provided by an expanded DS4800 connected by fiber within the same rack as the BladeCenter.
 
Q: How did the implementation go? Any particular challenges or surprises?

A: It went really well. This isn't a totally easy thing to do so you expect a learning curve--not just in-house but with the provider too. However, it came in on time and on budget and instantly worked better than we'd hoped for. A year on and not a single dramatic moment.
 
Q: How does running on a blade change other key parts of your infrastructure related to previous System i usage? Did you have any issues or investments needed in connectivity or storage solutions?

A: I think most companies like ours need to take stock of where they are with networking and other infrastructure from time to time, and the blade project provided an opportunity for Dancerace to do this. That's not a euphemism for "it was hell, but I have to justify it now." Quite the opposite, actually. We rationalized our older server setup and moved it to our mirrored secondary site and then rebuilt the server area in our primary. We're about to replace our secondary serving with blades, so that is a testimony I think to the benefits of rationalization.

Q: From your experience, what would be the top three business benefits of running IBM i on a blade for Dancerace?

A:

1. Flexibility. We can add new blades, extend the external storage, adjust the 'size' of a virtual server any time we like with very little or no interruption to running servers. And the per-partition unit of expansion cost is even and commercially sensible.

 
2. Longevity. A BladeCenter is 'gaslight' technology in some ways, if you see what I mean. It's very simple. In years to come the chassis will be supporting newer blades we've expanded to (like we're doing shortly), and the investment in storage will last with incremental expansion. This is better than the dedicated Power servers like our 525 (only three years old and already out of date).


3. Coolness. In more than one sense of the word! We have a very green setup here with renewable-sourced energy, but our server rooms need to be cooled. A blade setup generates a lot less heat, using much less power, so is attractive in this regard. It's more compact too, obviously. Some of our clients are attempting carbon neutrality, or at least a lowered carbon footprint, and doing what we do helps them if when they use our applications in a hosted/cloud model. I think that contributes to our sales proposition. It's certainly a talking point.

 
Q: Any other key points come to mind?

A: Obviously we have a fairly serious blade setup with the 'H' chassis and the DS4800. We didn't have these beforehand, so capital investment needed some thinking about. We asked IBM if what we wanted to do could be done on the cheaper BladeCenter S and a very helpful analysis from them explained just why that wasn't possible at the time--mainly because of disk I/O inadequacies with so many transactions from all these partitions. However, that was then and now you can attach the DS3200 external storage unit to an 'S' and still fit a simple setup into IBM's office rack. You can connect undemanding blades or partitions to the BladeCenter's internal storage (mirrored), and high demand partitions to the faster external RAID storage. This ought to attract more customers into the world of blades who might have gone for a 520, and we're planning to deploy this kind of configuration in our secondary sites in the UK and later on in Australia.
 
But whatever the needed configuration, the truth is this is a very rational format for serving. I think there's a feeling that the IBM i won't be the same if it's not in its own box. I've worked with this family of servers since the System 38 and am very loyal to it--for good reason as I've made a great living building software on the platform. But of late I've come to see the i more in terms of the unique Power processor and operating system combination. In other words as an appliance that resides in a virtual server and provides the fantastic performance and resilience the i is capable of. We have other Intel blades running Linux in the same BladeCenter, and we have a couple of Linux partitions now on the Power Blades. They do other things they're best at, and this best-of-breed approach now defines our server choice.

Posted by cmaxcer on February 3, 2010 at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

February 1, 2010 10:29 AM

Tribute to Craig Johnson

If there's one thing that has become instantly clear after the tragic passing of Craig Johnson, IBM's Power Systems software product manager for IBM i, PHP, and MySQL, it's that his touch reached far and wide across the world. For me, Craig was the go-to guy to talk new features and trends for IBM i, and while I caught some of his humor here and there in press briefings, comments from friends and acquaintances repeatedly mention his sense of humor.

I'm sure there's much more to the man than we will ever know.

There's clues, of course. Craig died in a snowy 39-vehicle pileup on Interstate 35 one week ago. In an attempt to rescue his wife, he exited his vehicle and was fatally struck by another vehicle.

Despite the risk and danger, this is what men do. I only know Craig in one context, really, and yet, in one sentence I understand that his last act was that of a man who's got your back.

Others know pieces and parts, too, and they know his work for the IBM i community worldwide. And yet, I'm guessing that at home Craig may not have spent much time talking up his accomplishments, the importance of his work, and the ways he helped out people and organizations.

So let's do that. Let's take a moment and jot down a memory, a description, an anecdote about Craig. We'll use some of the comments to create a page in our print magazine, take the virtual bits and bytes and place them among the same pages that Craig helped shape for so many years.

Posted by cmaxcer on February 1, 2010 at 10:29 AM | Comments (16)

January 26, 2010 10:25 AM

Craig Johnson Dies in Car Accident in Iowa

We just learned that Craig Johnson, IBM's Power Systems software product manager for IBM i, PHP, and MySQL, died in a car crash due to snow and low visibility conditions on Iowa's highways.

We believe the crash occurred yesterday, but from existing news stories and accident reports, the timing and circumstances aren't yet clear. Some of Craig's colleagues, however, were able to confirm Craig's passing, though no details have yet been officially reported.*

Craig was an amazing professional, always willing to take the time with System iNEWS to help share the latest details about IBM i and the System i. Over the years, Craig wrote for us, and helped us shape content to deliver great value to our readers and IBM's i-focused customers.

Craig is truly irreplaceable.

Our hearts and minds are with his family.

We will follow up with more detail as we learn it. Here are two links from a local Iowa paper that cover the road conditions and recent crashes (Craig was not named):

• http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2010/01/26/news/latest/doc4b5e7e1d832bc164924460.txt?refreshed=1#vmix_media_id=9689277
  
• http://www.globegazette.com/articles/2010/01/26/news/latest/doc4b5f14f68174f354026273.txt
  #vmix_media_id=9712979

*UPDATE: The Rochester Post-Bulletin has a short news story that confirms the accident on Monday: Rochester man killed in 40-car pileup

Posted by cmaxcer on January 26, 2010 at 10:25 AM | Comments (19)

January 25, 2010 11:07 AM

Invasion of the Smarter Planet

Have you noticed all the IBM Smarter Planet television ads lately? Seems like I can't get through any football playoff game without noticing a couple. IBM has been working on its Smarter Planet strategy since late 2008, but it seems as if the company has been amping things up lately -- or maybe not. Perhaps we're just reaching a saturation point, you know, where dry ground finally soaks up enough water that it can't hold any more and all the rainfall starts pooling up.

In addition to all the TV ads -- check them out on IBM's IBMAdvertising page on YouTube -- IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano has written a "The Future of the City" article for Newsweek, and earlier this month he was at Chatham House in London Talking up the Decade of Smart.

So what's the Smarter Planet, exactly? Systems of systems that use new sensors and measuring devices to help humans and infrastructure systems make smarter decisions, whether that's energy usage, traffic direction, or sewer systems that can react to massive rainfall.

There's more, of course, and it's incredibly complicated and harder to get a handle on than IBM's old e-business campaigns. I'll be writing about it more in the future, and I expect to see some Smarter Planet connections at the COMMON conference in May, but if you're interested, I suggest you take a lunch break and watch a few ads on YouTube and peruse the suddenly huge Smarter Planet site on IBM.com.

It's interesting, with some real problems that IBM is attempting to tackle. For instance, every year Americans waste 4.2 billion hours in traffic, and every year, traffic congestion wastes 58 supertankers of fuel. Presumably these 58 supertankers represent global traffic congestion, but still. It's in the ad:

Posted by cmaxcer on January 25, 2010 at 11:07 AM | Comments (6)

January 20, 2010 10:49 AM

IBM Q4: Like a Big Train, IBM Keeps Chugging Along

IBM's fourth-quarter 2009 and full-year financial report to investors yesterday seemed to surprise few analysts, and yet overall, IBM seems to be chugging along better than many big tech companies. IBM's fourth-quarter net income was $4.8 billion compared with $4.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008, an increase of 9 percent. Total revenues for the quarter came in at $27.2 billion, up 1 percent (but down 5 percent when adjusting for currency), as compared to Q4 2008.

"In 2009, we invested in opportunities such as Smarter Planet solutions, cloud computing and advanced analytics. These new capabilities position IBM to grow as the economy recovers. The increased operational leverage we have established by creating a globally integrated enterprise will enable us to drive greater profits as revenue growth returns. We are confident about 2010 and our ability to achieve the high end of our long-term roadmap," noted Samuel J. Palmisano, IBM chairman, president, and CEO.

Hardware, etc

Revenues from the Systems and Technology segment totaled $5.2 billion for the quarter, down 4 percent (9 percent, adjusting for currency) from the fourth quarter of 2008, but IBM says this is an improvement in the year-to-year revenue growth rate compared with the third quarter of 2009.

Systems revenues decreased 5 percent (10 percent, adjusting for currency). Revenues from the System x servers increased 37 percent. Revenues from the converged System p products decreased 14 percent compared with the 2008 period. Revenues from System z mainframe server products decreased 27 percent compared with the year-ago period. Total delivery of System z computing power, which is measured in MIPS (millions of instructions per second), decreased 19 percent. Revenues from System Storage increased 1 percent, and revenues from Retail Store Solutions decreased 5 percent. Revenues from Microelectronics OEM increased 2 percent.

"While our revenue performance bottomed in the second quarter of 2009, the rate of year-to-year decline has sequentially improved in each of the past two quarters. We had strong growth in System x and blades, and improved performance in microelectronics. We gained share in System p, System x, blades, and both disc and tape storage," reported Mark Loughridge, IBM senior vice president and CFO.

"Gross profit margins improved year to year in all brands and for Systems and Technology in total. This quarter marks the highest gross profit margin for this business since fourth quarter of 2007, driven by improvements in our System x server business and converged p. And bottom line, Systems and Technology pretax profit grew 15 percent year to year in the fourth quarter," he added.

Still, System z revenue declined 27 percent year to year, but later this year IBM will be releasing its next generation System z.

Converged System p revenue declined 14 percent year to year, but gained 4 points of market share, Loughridge said, adding, "This is the seventh consecutive quarter of market share gains. System p has gained share in 10 of the last 12 quarters. In the fourth quarter, our success with competitive UNIX displacements continued, with almost 200 competitive wins totaling nearly $200 million in the quarter. For the year, we had over 500 competitive wins, which generated sales of over $600 million. Later this quarter, we’ll introduce the next generation POWER systems, which will deliver two to three times the performance, in the same energy envelope. So quite an announcement for this product line."

As expected, Loughridge didn't mention the IBM i operating system.

The biggest surprise was IBM's System x performance -- revenue up 37 percent with a 3 percent share gain, with System x blades gaining 56 percent year to year. IBM credits an improved sales model and better product offerings for the gains.

Software and Services

At IBM, software and services are king. "In 2009, over 90 percent of our segment profit came from software, services and financing with software and services each contributing 42 percent of our segment PTI," Laughridge noted.

IBM's services segments delivered revenue of $14.6 billion, up 2 percent at actual rates, but down 5 percent at constant currency. For the full year, IBM's combined services businesses delivered $8.1 billion in pre-tax income, up 11 percent year to year.

"Overall, we feel encouraged about the business as we saw improving trends in revenue, margin and signings," Loughridge said.

For software, revenue of $6.6 billion was up 2 percent year to year, down 4 percent at constant currency, but a number of large deals didn't close in the fourth quarter, and consequently IBM expects stronger growth in the first quarter of 2010.

Posted by cmaxcer on January 20, 2010 at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2010 9:42 AM

Forrester Says IT Downturn 'Unofficially Over'

After a dismal performance in 2009, Forrester Research is reporting that the technology sector will see a recovery in 2010 as businesses and governments in the U.S. and around the world begin spending again on information technology.

After declining 8.2 percent in 2009, U.S. IT spending will grow 6.6 percent in 2010 to $568 billion. Global IT spending, which dropped 8.9 percent last year, will rise 8.1 percent in 2010 to more than $1.6 trillion. Software and computer hardware will see the greatest growth, as Forrester forecasts a new multi-year cycle of technology investment growth and innovation defined by Smart Computing.

"The technology downturn of 2008 and 2009 is unofficially over," notes Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst. "All the pieces are in place for a 2010 tech spending rebound. In the U.S., the tech recovery will be much stronger than the overall economic recovery, with technology spending growing at more than twice the rate of gross domestic product (GDP) this year."

With regard to sector growth, hardware and software will lead the charge. Measured in U.S. dollars, global purchases of computer equipment will be up 8.2 percent, communications equipment buying will rise by 7.6 percent, software spending will increase by 9.7 percent, purchases of IT consulting and systems integration services will grow by 6.8 percent, and IT outsourcing services will be 7.1 percent higher.

On a regional basis, Europe will be the strongest performing region. Measured in U.S. dollars, the strongest growth in 2010 will be in Western and Central Europe, where tech purchases will rise by 11.2 percent, boosted by the dollar's decline against the euro, Forrester reports. IT purchases in Canada will grow by 9.9 percent, Asia Pacific by 7.8 percent, and Latin America by 7.7 percent. The weakest market will be Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, rising by just 2.4 percent. When measured against local currency, however, the U.S. will actually post the strongest growth of all the regional tech markets.

"We are entering a new six- to seven-year cycle of IT growth and innovation that Forrester calls Smart Computing," said Bartels. "New technologies of awareness married to advanced business intelligence analytics make computing smart. Smart Computing rests on new foundation technologies such as service-oriented architecture, server and storage virtualization, cloud computing, and unified communications. 2010 marks the beginning of this next phase of technology advancement."

No Hard Numbers for i, But Still. . .

Meanwhile, in the IBM i space, over the last few months, I've heard from about half a dozen or so ISVs and resellers who've noted that 2009 was actually a pretty good year for them. Some upgrade cycles panned out on the hardware side, and customers seemed to be less inclined to risk messing with the System i, because, after all, it wasn't broken. Obviously, there's been ups and downs in different software segments, and we're talking about private companies that don't really share their whole revenue story, but still, some companies seem to have had a good year by selling to customers who were suddenly "forced" to re-see the value proposition in their i.

Posted by cmaxcer on January 13, 2010 at 9:42 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2010 11:15 AM

COMMON President Offers 2010 Meeting Update

In the latest COMMON.CONNECT digital edition newsletter, COMMON President Wayne Madden offers an upbeat take on COMMON's upcoming 50th anniversary meeting in Orlando in May.

Madden notes that the conference will feature 300 sessions plus 4 pre-conference workshops. There's 8 new, non-IBM speakers among 56, plus there's 61 brand-new sessions, including a "New Technology Overview" course of study that will cover integration, encryption, cloud computing, blades, Web 2.0, app modernization, web services, and frameworks.

The expo, by the way, will boast 80 exhibitors.

Madden also briefly addresses the speaker volunteer benefits brouhaha, noting, "I'm very happy to report that the spirit of volunteerism is very much alive and well within the organization. We are very pleased that almost 100% of our volunteers are continuing in their various positions within the organization. . . ."

For more on the event, check out http://www.common.org/conferences/2010/annual/index.html.

Posted by cmaxcer on January 11, 2010 at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

January 4, 2010 10:28 AM

While 520 Rules, Blades Gaining Traction

IBM first introduced IBM i running on a blade on an IBM BladeCenter in January two years ago. While the blade option gained a lot of interest, it still faced hurdles over connectivity and storage for most SMB organizations. Now, with IBM continuing to enhance the blade options, and with more and more IBM i customers upgrading to IBM i 6.1, blades are gaining a bit more traction. Some of my value-added resellers contacts are seeing a few go out the door these days, but I also wanted to ask IBM what it's seeing.

Rick Bause, IBM's Power Systems PR manager for the IBM Systems & Technology Group, answers my questions:

CM: How would you describe customer interest in IBM i on blades these days?

RB: Interest in IBM BladeCenter deployments continue to grow within IBM i clients. The predominate environment we are seeing is that the BladeCenter is being used to deploy a new consolidated infrastructure with several BladeCenter HSxx blades running x86 applications and one or two Power processor-based blades running IBM i applications. The BladeCenter JS12 with two POWER6 processor cores is the most popular blade for running IBM i in these deployments.

CM: Are there any particular customer situations where you're seeing blades get adopted?

RB: Clients are seeing value with running IBM i within the same infrastructure as their consolidated x86 environment. We are also seeing some customers deploy IBM i on several blades for running applications like WebSphere to take advantage of the price/performance available with the BladeCenter solution.

CM: How about more traditional Power Systems . . . is there any particular model of Power System (likely intended to run IBM i) that is a core hit with customers these days?

RB: In general the most popular Power Systems server for running IBM i is the Power 520. With one, two, and four-core options, this model has the entry price plus the performance to more than satisfy the requirements of many IBM i clients.

Posted by cmaxcer on January 4, 2010 at 10:28 AM | Comments (2)

December 20, 2009 11:10 PM

COMMON Announces Candidates for 2010 Board Elections

COMMON has announced Jeff Carey, Pete Helgren, Kevin Mort, Jim Oberholtzer, and Ron Pilcher as the slate of candidates for the 2010 Board of Directors election. The five are running for three open positions, and COMMON says you'll hear more from them in the coming months. Although COMMON members who attend the 50th Anniversary 2010 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando will be able to vote on site, COMMON will also hold electronic voting from April 5 through May 5, 2009.

The winners will be announced at the Meeting of the Members (MoM) on Wednesday evening, May 5, in Orlando.

In previous years, SystemiNetwork.com has asked candidates to respond via email to a couple of questions, which we then published online. Last year we asked four questions:

1. What is the single most important thing you would like to see during your term?
2. What other burning issues do you hope to address as a COMMON Board member?
3. How can your election and COMMON members have a tangible, positive effect on IBM and IBM i?
4. What is the biggest challenge facing the iSeries/IBM i today?

And four candidates responded (last year). If you've got any suggestions for new or additional questions, don't hesitate to holler here.

Posted by cmaxcer on December 20, 2009 at 11:10 PM | Comments (3)