System iNetwork

April 2009

April 27, 2009 8:22 AM

A Few Nuggets Turn Up for IBM i at COMMON in Reno

I don't think anyone was expecting a booming gold rush at COMMON this year in Reno, and COMMON President Randy Dufault has been quick to thank attendees for coming in a year where time is precious and travel budgets have been slashed. Still, while attendance is certainly down--no official numbers are in--the mood seems upbeat. More importantly, there's a shift going on, and it's hard to say yet how it will shake out: the banner over the stage in the Opening Session noted that COMMON is "The Power Systems User Group."

Dufault, of course, kicked off the annual meeting of its members with the usual business of updating its members on the user group's latest efforts. IBM's Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Power Systems, was scheduled to speak at the opening session, but he was caught up in Chicago due to weather issues that grounded a number of flights. Jeff Howard, IBM's marketing manager of Power Systems, took his place, revealing a few interesting nuggets.

"In the fourth quarter of 2008, we shipped more high-end IBM i editions than we have ever shipped," he said. And in the first quarter of 2009, 96 percent of the IBM i-focused boxes that IBM shipped out were the converged Power Systems units.

Howard also happily showed one of IBM's favorite graphs, which plots the market server revenue share of HP, Sun, and IBM in the Unix space. Since 2001 or so, HP and Sun's lines led the market, with IBM trailing, but around 2004, the lines intersected and IBM's AIX sales rose over both HP and Sun's lines, which dropped, with IBM's line rising steeply and widening the gap into 2009. While COMMON is certainly embracing Power Systems and AIX, with some AIX users in attendance, at least one presumably i-focused attendee seemed to be taking a nap.

IBM i 6.1 and AIX 6 Are Market-Ready

Howard also noted that IBM i 6.1 has been getting excellent vendor support--600 ISVs now have 1700 applications ready to run on IBM i 6.1. And as for AIX 6, 900 ISVs have 2,900 applications ready to run.

Howard also highlighted PHP on IBM i, inviting Zend CEO Andi Gutmans to join him on stage for a quick Q&A. They noted the usual popularity metrics of 20 million web sites running PHP, with 6 million developers coding in PHP, but also got into some IBM i land: Since Zend first enabled PHP on IBM i, the company has delivered 14,000 unique downloads to IBM i-focused customers. Nice.

Best yet, Gutman pointed out, PHP is great for RPG programmers because it will let them learn the language with procedural coding techniques, but it remains versatile enough to let programmers ease into object-oriented techniques as they gain skill and confidence.

And, of course, Zend and IBM have worked out a deal where Zend Core now comes pre-loaded (but not installed) on every new IBM i edition to ship out of IBM.

IBM's Working Theme

Moving on to IBM's latest deliveries, IBM's new basic working theme is "The New Power Equation for Dynamic Infrastructure." There's nothing groundbreaking about it, but it does give IBM talking points focused on helping companies be more nimble through reducing costs by offering greener, more virtualized solutions, and the like.

Howard revealed that IBM i-edition POWER blades are doing well--the company has sold several hundred of them so far, which is pretty good when you consider that running IBM i on a BladeCenter requires not only a different storage solution but a new mindset as well.

Howard also gave attendees a sneak peak at IBM's new JS23 blade, which is a 2-socket, 4-core blade that offers a 20 percent performance improvement over previous blades. It's running at 4.2 GHz and uses L3 cache, all of which helps give it twice the price/performance ratio over HP's comparable blades and five times the price/performance of Sun's similar offerings. Basically IBM was saying, "You get a lot of power at a great price."

For even more capability, two JS23 blades will snap together to become a JS43, offering double the sockets and cores. To get the JS43, however, you do have to upgrade your license.

Meanwhile, IBM is also introducing a new Power 550 Express and a new Power 520 Express. The 550 will get a 5.0 GHz processor, while the 520 will ramp up to 4.7 GHz.

Solid State Drives on the Way

To offer even faster response times for critical applications, IBM is also now offering solid state drive (SSD) options that, Howard says, can help companies deliver 1.6 times more transactions running through the faster SSD drives over slower traditional disk drives.

And that faster speed, he said, can reduce the overall number of drives needed by a company to keep up with transactions--in one example, a company could go from using 800 hard drives to 36 SSD drives with 80 traditional hard drives. Even better yet, Howard said IBM i customers are at an advantage for using the SSDs because IBM i is already optimized for using them. Stay tuned for more detail as we learn more about using SSDs with IBM i.

In other new deliverables on the way soon, IBM plans to offer new active memory sharing for PowerVM, an improved Systems Director, additional Linux support, virtual tape support for IBM i and RAID 5, along with new I/O drawers.

DB2 Web Query Selling Well

Howard also noted that IBM's DB2 Web Query was selling well, noting that it was one of IBM i's fastest selling IBM applications ever--the company has already delivered 25,000 licenses.

The next major release of IBM i is slated for 2010, and it will bring DB2 XML support and enhanced encryption, PowerHA asynchronous clustering for internal disk, more virtual I/O, and exploitation of SSDs, among other enhancements not yet detailed by IBM.

Overall, many of these announcements should be made public tomorrow by IBM.

Posted by cmaxcer on April 27, 2009 at 8:22 AM | Comments (6)

April 21, 2009 4:31 PM

IBM Smart Market for i Coming to COMMON?

IBM has a new "IBM Smart Market" go-to-market campaign/package that the company has been slowly building and tweaking. Why the "slash" in the campaign/package description? That's because it's still a little unclear. On the surface, IBM Smart Market is the portal into IBM "Smart Business" applications, services, and community. And, as IBM defines it, IBM Smart Business is a new, easier way for small and midsize organizations to find, buy, and manage all of the applications they need to run a smarter business.

Here's a snip from IBM's site describing IBM Smart Business:

IBM Smart Business is designed to help increase efficiency, decrease complexity and deliver business applications in a way that is easy to implement, operate and grow.

IBM Smart Business is about the ease of acquiring and managing business solutions developed by IBM and Business Partners such as ERP, CRM, finance and accounting, mobility, security, e-commerce, and telephony—rather than acquiring IT fixes. So with as little as a few clicks, you can have access to capabilities such as e-mail, as well as many other applications. Solutions are built on a set of open standard interfaces called IBM Smart Business Application Integrator, which makes the installation of new applications, systems management and online services easy to use, consistent, and compatible for businesses. No matter which software applications or services you choose, you can be assured that they've been tested and integrated so that everything works together right out of the box.

Enter the Smart Cube

Obviously, some sort of hardware is needed since most small and medium businesses aren't quite ready to leap up into the cloud. And that piece of hardware is the Smart Cube, which IBM defines as "a tightly integrated appliance designed to a new standard."

Again, here's a snip:

IBM Smart Cube, the integrated server platform, comes in several different configurations based on application requirements. Smart Cube, loaded with IBMSmart Business Software Pack, is pre-configured and ready to use, with everything your business needs to start improving efficiency and help you grow, from file serving to Web serving to print serving, from backup and recovery to firewall to security. All the hardware including CPU, memory, disk drives, ports, network controllers, and DVD-ROM are all contained within one server platform. Today, IBM Smart Cube allows customers to choose the configuration that best matches their needs.

OK, that actually sounds pretty awesome. But what about the all-important guts?

IBM has based its Smart Cubes on both x86 industry standard processors and the scalable, powerful IBMPOWER®processor to deliver the broadest software solution portfolio for small and medium-sized business customers from 5 - 1,000 employees. Depending on business needs and growth, smaller companies with 5 - 300 employees may choose an x86 Smart Cube, while companies with 100 - 1,000 employees may go with a POWER processor-based Smart Cube. While both appliances have been designed for availability and reliability, the POWER processor-based Smart Cube has IBM mainframe attributes for virtualization, reliability and scalability. These new appliances allow companies to grow as business needs expand.

So, IBM i?

Yes. In addition to other operating systems and x86 processor configurations, IBM will offer Smart Cubes preloaded with IBM i for POWER processors.

Of course, there's a lot more to IBM Smart Cubes, Smart Business, and Smart Market than currently meets the eye. For instance, the whole point of IBM Smart Market seems to be about taking the complexity out of IT purchase decisions, as well as the ongoing management of an SMB's IT solution. For instance, on IBM's Smart Market portal site, potential customers can explore offerings by industry, number of employees, product category, or business department. Obviously IBM isn't leading with an operating system here.

It's all a bit new, and IBM hasn't yet talked much about it. The big question for the IBM i world is if IBM's new Smart Market strategy will do more than simply include IBM i . . . and actually sell it. No matter how it shakes out, as Bill W noted on Maxed Out, there's a good chance we'll hear something about it at COMMON.

Posted by cmaxcer on April 21, 2009 at 4:31 PM | Comments (3)

April 20, 2009 10:13 AM

Move Over IBM: Oracle Happy to Buy Sun

Days after IBM ended its courtship of Sun Microsystems, apparently concluding that Sun wasn't such a good buy after all, Oracle took a seat at the table and slapped down $7.4 billion to seal the deal. Interestingly, Oracle was quick to rationalize the buy, possibly heading off the notion that Oracle was scooping up the damaged goods that IBM didn't want.

"We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle's non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft, and Siebel combined," notes Oracle President Safra Catz.

ERP + Database + Server

"The acquisition of Sun transforms the IT industry, combining best-in-class enterprise software and mission-critical computing systems," noted Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "Oracle will be the only company that can engineer an integrated system--applications to disk--where all the pieces fit and work together so customers do not have to do it themselves. Our customers benefit as their systems integration costs go down while system performance, reliability, and security go up."

A bit of hyperbole, sure, but he's got a point. IBM and HP both produce hardware and enough middleware and software solutions to confuse any CIO, but neither IBM nor HP directly offer anything comparable to Oracle's successful end-to-end enterprise software stacks.

The really interesting thing here, though, is what this acquisition gives Oracle: the ability to create and market a holistic system. It's not exactly a 1-to-1 comparison to IBM i/System i/iSeries/AS/400, but the point remains.

Oracle's Crystal Ball

There are substantial long-term strategic customer advantages to Oracle owning two key Sun software assets: Java and Solaris. And Java, Oracle notes, is "the most important software Oracle has ever acquired". Oracle Fusion Middleware is built on top of Sun's Java language and software. Oracle said the acquisition will let the company ensure continued innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

Meanwhile, the Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database, Oracle's largest business, and has been for a long time. With the acquisition of Sun, Oracle says it can optimize the Oracle database for some of the unique, high-end features of Solaris. (Oracle also noted that it remains committed to Linux.)

Sun Speaks

"This is a fantastic day for Sun's customers, developers, partners, and employees across the globe, joining forces with the global leader in enterprise software to drive innovation and value across every aspect of the technology marketplace," Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz says. "From the Java platform touching nearly every business system on earth, powering billions of consumers on mobile handsets and consumer electronics, to the convergence of storage, networking and computing driven by the Solaris operating system and Sun's SPARC and x64 systems. Together with Oracle, we'll drive the innovation pipeline to create compelling value to our customer base and the marketplace."

There is, of course, a plenty of room for hiccups. Oracle solutions aren't exactly known for simplicity or low-cost options, and will adding iron result in a lower overall bill for customers any time soon? And might competing solutions lose out?

"Our largest customers have been asking us to step up to a broader role to reduce complexity, risk, and cost by delivering a highly optimized stack based on standards," notes Oracle's other president, Charles Phillips. "This transaction will preserve and enhance investments made by our customers, while we continue to work with our partners to provide customers with choice."

The Board of Directors of Sun Microsystems has unanimously approved the transaction. It is anticipated to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, certain regulatory approvals, and customary closing conditions.

Posted by cmaxcer on April 20, 2009 at 10:13 AM | Comments (6)

April 15, 2009 10:26 AM

IBM Tea Leaves--Anything of Note Coming to COMMON?

At last year's COMMON, you didn't need a crystal ball to see the future--there were plenty of signs in the sky and in tea pointing to the unification of System i and p. This year, though, as I prep for COMMON, I'm surprised to realize that I'm not expecting to hear anything groundbreaking . . . which also means I'll be pleasantly surprised if I do.

IBM's Ross Mauri, general manager of IBM Power Systems, will be there, of course. At the opening session, he's set to jointly present the 2009 COMMON/IBM Power Systems Innovation Awards, along with COMMON President Randy Dufault.

Mauri is then slated to address to the audience.

Hmm. What might Mauri have to say to all those who are faithful to IBM i? To the new AIX-using COMMON members?

Whatever his message may be, somehow I think what he says--and maybe even more importantly, what he doesn't say--will be even more pivotal to our understanding of IBM i's place in the world than last year's unification announcement.

Meanwhile, the Opening Session in Reno will close with a presentation from the keynote speaker, Jeff Jonas, an IBM distinguished engineer and chief scientist for IBM Entity Analytics, "Cops and Robbers Las Vegas Style."

Posted by cmaxcer on April 15, 2009 at 10:26 AM | Comments (13)

April 13, 2009 10:24 AM

2009 COMMON Board Candidates Speak Out

There are five candidates running for three open positions on the COMMON Board of Directors: Bruce "Hoss" Collins, Richard Dolewski, Leo Lefebvre, Pete Massiello, and Trevor Perry. To help you make your choice, we asked the candidates four key questions. Each responded via e-mail, and their answers are listed below. You can vote online now. In addition to online voting, COMMON members who attend the 2009 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Reno, Nevada, will be able to vote on site.

Also, the COMMON Board of Directors Election site offers additional detail about each candidate.

Each candidate received the same instructions and response times, and each candidate's responses were given the same level of very light editing for minor spelling and grammatical errors. Not all candidates chose to respond to our questions.

Bruce "Hoss" Collins

1. What is the single most important thing you would like to see during your term?
   
   

   Make COMMON the main point of focus for education and networking among the (IBM i and AIX) POWER users.

2. What other burning issues do you hope to address as a COMMON Board member?
   

   We, the Board of Directors of COMMON, realize that we must be more price-to-value conscious now, more than ever. COMMON's staff continuously looks for works hard to keep prices as low as possible and we want to make sure that our members see the value of COMMON's membership and its excellent education and networking opportunities at its many different events. I will continue to push toward keeping COMMON actively seeking ways to meet the membership's need and deliver greater value.

3. How can your election and COMMON members have a tangible, positive effect on IBM and IBM i?
   

   I bring over 25 years of the IBM i family experience--a COMMON volunteer for over 10 years and currently serving as a Director on COMMON's board. My experience with AIX also gives me valuable insight to that community that others may not have. This blended experience allows me to better understand our members' needs and to direct their concerns to IBM directly.

4. What is the biggest challenge facing the iSeries/IBM i today?
   

   That IBM i is not widely known. The IBM i needs to be in the face of every CEO, CIO, CFO, and CTO extolling its value as a world class and extremely dependable server. These new executives have grown up in University with Microsoft and its products. Most have never heard of an IBM i, but they do know Windows since they probably use it every day. The biggest challenge is getting this information to the people that make the decision.

Leo Lefebvre

1. What is the single most important thing you would like to see during your term?
   
   

   Probably an easy answer with the way the economy is going these days would be to keep the whole COMMON organization in a positive financial situation. It is not easy to do, especially when companies are reevaluating their education budget and reducing their travel expenses. My first term on the COMMON board showed me how dedicated the current board was in keeping COMMON in a good financial situation, long before the start of the current recession , so I am confident that we (i.e. COMMON) can survive difficult times with the proper directors.

2. What other burning issues do you hope to address as a COMMON Board member?
   

   Like it or not, the biggest issue I see today, in the Power System world is the co-existence, co-habitation of the two platforms, i & p. Let's face it, AIX and Linux are here to stay--and so is RPG and other great i tools! Embracing the AIX & Linux world does not mean that we are 'leaving' the RPG and i world. It is just another great occasion to put more tools in our tool box. I do believe that both worlds will really benefit from each other. At the COMMON level, the whole organization knows how to "run education events" and really does it with ease. Setting up education events addressed to the AIX/Linux along with events addressed to the i crowd would just be a breeze once we get the hang of the 'p' world, but, on that side, to really have a much better chance to succeed, we need all the help we can get, especially from IBM, to reach the AIX/Linux world.

3. How can your election and COMMON members have a tangible, positive effect on IBM and IBM i?
   

   Personally, I also have a very long history with the Toronto Users Group--a history as long as with COMMON. I have more than 20 years with COMMON and a couple months less with TEC. In my 20-plus years on the TUG board, I have served almost ten years as president. This year, we organized our 16th annual two-day conference. I got very much involved with all the 16 editions. I do have a very good understanding of the i users and I do keep a very close contact with the IBM people. The IBM Toronto lab is in my neighborhood. With COMMON, I also have been a volunteer for more than 20 years. I have help in many areas as well.

4. What is the biggest challenge facing the iSeries/IBM i today?
   

   Education, education, education at all levels. Make sure that the students coming out of the universities and colleges have a very good understanding of the 'i' so that when they arrive in work market they can speak 'i'. Make sure they have enough information to influence the decision makers so that they look into the 'i' products. That is for the 'new' comers to the IT world.

   For us, already in the market for a long time, it is imperative that we stay up to date with the ever changing technology. We could compare ourselves with most of the other professionals, like doctors, accountants. What would you say if your doctor had not kept up to date for the last 10-15 years? How about your accountants? They also have to stay up-to-date especially with all the new controls, taxes, and exemptions changing regularly.

   Education is a big challenge, and COMMON is more than ready to help!

Pete Massiello

1. What is the single most important thing you would like to see during your term?
   
   

   Diversity of COMMON's offerings must continue to expand to provide our members with additional alternative education options for our member's benefit. It doesn't mean getting rid of what we have, but adding to those offerings so that our members can reap the benefits of their COMMON membership. Over the past 4 years we have expanded and changed our offerings, but we can't rest on those accomplishments. We must continue to improve what we changed, and look for additional ways to meet the needs of our members. People are being asked by their companies to produce more, and COMMON needs to find ways to educate our members to prepare them for the challenges they face in their careers.

2. What other burning issues do you hope to address as a COMMON Board member?
   

   We need to increase the value that our members receive from being a COMMON member, and at the same time improve the financial viability of the organization. This will be no easy task, as on the surface these may seem like conflicting goals. As people realize the value they receive from COMMON events, newsletters, education, networking, etc., they will want to utilize the organization more and more. This gives our members more value from us, and more income opportunity from our members. People are always willing to pay a fair price when they are getting exceptional value. As for the financial stability of the organization, we need to spend our resources wisely, and get the most out of our own investments. COMMON has done a great job over the years reducing costs, but we can't grow an organization by downsizing. We need to grow the organization by creating new sources of revenue, which our members want to purchase. These additional sources of revenue will come by working with everyone in our organization to think of new ways to serve our membership. We have many great individuals in this organization, and we have to challenge and lead these individuals, as well as listen to their ideas to make this organization a solid entity going forward.

3. How can your election and COMMON members have a tangible, positive effect on IBM and IBM i?
   

   Is IBM willing to listen to one person? Probably not, but as a united voice, together as COMMON members, we are a force to be reckoned with. That means we work with IBM to let them know what we need from the IBM Company, and for the IBM i. I have recently been a member of the CAAC, and we have been working together with IBM on bringing requirements of the COMMON members to IBM's attention. Many of the requirements that our members have put forth have been put into IBM i 6.1 and the release to follow. IBM has proved to be a great partner to work with in this endeavor, and we have done a great service to our COMMON members by bringing their requirements to IBM's attention.

4. What is the biggest challenge facing the iSeries/IBM i today?
   

   The acceptance by the non AS/400, iSeries, IBM i world is the biggest threat. People believe that the product is old and not viable, but those of us on the platform know otherwise. The merger of i and p into Power Systems has been a great thing for the iSeries world, bringing us less expensive hardware, new technology, and newer technology at a quicker pace. That is the upside, but the downside is that i has been brought together with its much larger cousin, AIX, who seems to overshadow us. IBM i needs to keep its identity, keep the greatness that Rochester has built into IBM i, and continue to expand that market. The value of IBM i has always been the integration of the operating system and all its components. We as the iSeries community, and COMMON as the iSeries user group, needs to make sure that IBM doesn't let the IBM i become overshadowed in the AIX world of Power Systems. In addition, we need to push IBM to expand the i market place, and to let the rest of the world know the value that the IBM i brings to the table for any business.

Trevor Perry

1. What is the single most important thing you would like to see during your term?
   
   

   An emphasis on the "user" in "user group". From outside, and from within the membership, COMMON appears to have evolved into a conference organization. I believe strongly in an organization that provides education, and balances that with community efforts to bring the users together. The goal is to strengthen the community, and in turn provide more benefit from being a COMMON member. Bringing the community together is important for the future of our platform, and COMMON has strength in the community that can be leveraged to support our future as a user group.

2. What other burning issues do you hope to address as a COMMON Board member?
   

   COMMON is in transition from an iCommunity to a Power Systems community. Reducing the impact of the growing pains is key to the successful evolution of COMMON. We need to bring many groups together, the key groups being AIX users and IBM i users. I believe many members still consider themselves loyal AS/400 programmers, and we need to provide education, leadership and community to the entire Power Systems constituency, regardless of the name we use. As we grow towards being the premier Power Systems user organization, we need strong leaders--I intend to be one.

3. How can your election and COMMON members have a tangible, positive effect on IBM and IBM i?
   

   COMMON members have the Requirements process which can be used to communicate needs for IBM i. Members are also represented by the CAAC (COMMON Americas Advisory Council). These vehicles provide a voice to IBM from the entire membership of COMMON. Encouraging the user community to be engaged in their user group will lead to a more active Requirements process and provide more input to IBM. Having been actively engaged in the IBM i community, I know I can provide translation between the business needs of the customer and the needs of IBM for clarity and purpose in their communications with customers, with a COMMON voice.

   The evolution of COMMON to a Power Systems user group will allow additional visibility to IBM, and the relationship between the Linux, AIX and IBM i communities can only strengthen the importance and visibility of IBM i to IBM. This can ensure the future of IBM i in a Power Systems world.

4. What is the biggest challenge facing the iSeries/IBM i today?
   

   There are many external factors that engage to compete against the success and longevity of the IBM i platform. With IBM bringing the IBM i operating system to their mainstream server, we have the opportunity to reinvigorate the platform as IBM itself identifies and promotes "i for Business". The biggest challenge to overcome is the inconsistency between what the platform is perceived to be, and what the platform actually is. COMMON is a strong leader in the community, and we can leverage that strength to bring the Power Systems worlds together for a brighter future.

Posted by cmaxcer on April 13, 2009 at 10:24 AM | Comments (7)

April 8, 2009 9:18 AM

iSociety's Backup Recovery Chat Transcript, Plus SQL Tomorrow

iSociety's backup and recovery chat transcript with Debbie Saugen, senior recovery architect for IBM's Business Continuity and Resiliency Service, is now online. Meanwhile, tomorrow iSociety will host a chat with Ted Holt of Day-Brite Lighting, "Q&A: 30 SQL Tips in 60 Minutes."

The chat with Holt is set for Thursday, April 9, at 12 p.m. Central Time. To join the chat, you'll need to be an iSociety member (it's quick and free) and give yourself a few minutes to make sure the ActiveX control that's required for the chat is installed and working on your PC -- though you can test it beforehand.

Back to Backup and Recovery

Here's a snip from Saugen's chat:

Debbie Saugen says: The main advantage using BRMS software encryption with 6.1 is that you encrypt using your existing tape device. There are some disadvantages to keep mind though. You should expect for your backups to take twice as long with software encryption. And you can only encrypt user data. You cannot encrypt your full system backup.

iSociety is affiliated with COMMON, but you don't have to be a member of COMMON to join iSociety.

Posted by cmaxcer on April 8, 2009 at 9:18 AM | Comments (0)

April 6, 2009 9:57 AM

IT Spending to Go From Small Rise to a Dive

The continuing impact of the recession has led the big IT consulting firms to hit their calculators again. For instance, instead of a 1.6 percent increase in U.S. purchases of IT goods and services, Forrester Research is projecting a 3.1 percent decrease in 2009. Meanwhile, Gartner is projecting a 3.8 percent decline in worldwide IT spending.

"IT organizations worldwide are being asked to trim budgets, and consumers are cutting back on discretionary spending," notes Richard Gordon, research vice president and head of global forecasting at Gartner. "The speed and severity of the response by businesses and consumers alike to these economic circumstances will result in an IT market slowdown in 2009 that will be worse than the 2.1 per cent decline in IT spending in 2001 when the internet investment bubble burst."

According to Gartner's new figures, computer hardware spending will decline 14.9 percent, software spending will rise just 0.3 percent, IT services will drop 1.7 percent, and telecom spending will drop 2.9 percent.

Not surprisingly, Gartner says the slowdown in IT spending will reduce new market penetration and will slow replacement activity. Consumers and businesses will continue switching to lower-cost products, extending the life of existing devices, and extending their current contracts and purchasing agreements.

Is Credit the Latest IT Issue?

"In many ways, the biggest factor affecting the tech market is not the recession but the breakdown of the financial system," notes Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst. "The credit crunch is still causing companies to dramatically cut back on all forms of capital investment, including many IT goods and services, and this will affect 2009 revenues for most IT vendors."

Forrester expects that US business and government purchases of computer equipment will drop by 6.8 percent in 2009, on top of a 4 percent decline in 2008. Forrester also expects telecom to drop 7.8 percent in 2009. IT consulting and systems integration services will slip 2 percent in 2009.

"There is a light at the end of the tunnel--demand has been delayed but not cancelled," Bartels said. "Growth will come back strong once the recession and tight credit conditions start to ease."

Forrester expects computer equipment purchases to bounce back in 2010, with a gain of 7 percent, as well as a 4.8 percent increase in telecom equipment, along with software purchase growth of 6.3 percent, followed by consulting and systems integration growth of 7.4 percent.

Bodes Well for IBM i?

With a world of renewed interest in value and efficiency, it's hard not to hope that these troubled economic times might actually be good for System i-based organizations. Those who have already invested in IBM i 6.1 will likely continue to maintain their i-focused efforts for some time . . . it's those customers who are on older boxes that hold the wild cards. Will they recognize the continuing value of their System i workloads by hunkering down and maintaining their applications for years to come? Or will they reinvest in IBM i once the money starts moving again, knowing that a Power System and IBM i will provide them with supreme flexibility for any future need?

Posted by cmaxcer on April 6, 2009 at 9:57 AM | Comments (5)

April 1, 2009 10:24 AM

Are You a Commodity?

With all the layoffs we're seeing in the tech industry, coupled with outsourcing to India and other countries, as well as a global recession, there's a lot of people looking at their jobs with a new level of scrutiny. Will my employer have a job for me for the rest of this year? For next year? If I lose my job, what's my backup plan? Is this a good industry? A good area? Can I trust my employer to roll with some punches and keep going? And . . . am I a commodity?

I don't think many people are asking this last question: "Am I a commodity?" It requires a stark realization and assessment of person's skills and the value they deliver to a company.

What's worse, the question isn't really about job excellence or even profitability. The question is, can an employer buy what I do at a lower price?

Consider Glass Cleaner

For the most part, a bottle of glass cleaner is like all other bottles of glass cleaner: they have harsh chemicals in pretty colors that help you clean glass. Some are better than others, no doubt, but how clean do most people really need their glass? Are they willing to pay $10 for a bottle? $5 $1.99? The point is, glass cleaner is a commodity, and I'm going to buy it for the lowest price possible.

Should it buy it from a locally-owned mom-and-pop store? Or should I buy it from Wal-mart?

I buy it from Wal-mart--it's glass cleaner! There's no level of personal customer service that's valuable enough for me to pay extra for glass cleaner.

Are You Glass Cleaner?

I know, I know. What a lousy question. Seriously, though, a few people brought up some excellent points in Monday's Maxed Out post on IBM Layoffs and the resulting brouhaha. Is IBM moving jobs overseas? The evidence is pretty clear. Are those jobs commodities? The answer also seems painfully obvious.

Consider this comment:

"It is sad that people are losing their jobs because they are being outsourced and I don’t wish that on anyone. However, the history of IT has played a significant role in job elimination over the years. Programmers are always writing programs to make processes more efficient so that fewer people are needed to do them - EDI, web-based ordering, etc. Reports are written to track trends and make business decisions on which suppliers to keep and which to cut loose to cut costs as well. After all, the goal of a company is to maximize profits and minimize losses.

Do the same programmers who complain about outsourcing also refuse to write a program because its implementation might cost some coworker their job?"

--Jon

And :

"If we, the IT workers and Developers of America, want to keep our jobs from being outsourced overseas, then we need to STOP complaining about it, and START demonstrating to our employers the VALUE that keeping the jobs here in America will bring to the company. In a capitalist society, THAT is what will preserve our jobs. Griping about how evil the company is will NOT preserve our jobs.
--ScottDarth

I know a guy who is an IT/Engineering project manager for one of the largest companies in the world. He works for just one of the many tentacles that belong to the company. He once made a great point about skills and being in demand that illustrates the dangerous dance we do in the IT world. He needed some pros with Oracle skills, and the going rate for local talent in the region in the U.S. per hour was just too high--I think it may have been $150 per hour for a 3-to-6 month project. Do the math. What would happen if the project needed more time to complete? Suddenly a few contractors with mild language barriers in India didn't look so bad.

"At a certain point," he said, "It just doesn't matter if you have to say everything twice."

That same project manager also does something remarkable: every project he works on, he associates it with concrete business value. What will it cost to do it? What will the project save or generate? If he can't find reasonably hard numbers to reflect a value, he won't take on the project. And he tells his boss that. Now, when his bosses ask why the company is working on a project, he has the numbers in hand. So when his boss comes under fire for a particular project, his boss also has concrete justification for a project. If upper management wants to cut a project or scrutinize expenses, the IT project manager's teams never run into trouble--the business clarity is always available.

At the same time, the project manager keeps track of this information, so when it comes time to do his annual review, he's got handy data points: we completed this project that saved $600,000; this project that generates $3 million in annual review; this project that fixed this problem that was costing $750,000.

He's not providing information about his people skills or his ability to take a phone call in the middle of night and stay on the phone for 6 hours with the IT pros in India to guide them through some painful Oracle processes and upgrades--and then make the call to a CIO to get a verbal go-ahead for critical change. He's not claiming that he's an efficient project manager who completed projects on-time. He's expressing his value to the company in easy-to-understand terms.

Oh, and by the way, a couple of years ago, this guy was a .NET programmer for a natural gas company.

Meanwhile, he just completed a project that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and streamlined a process that was a bottleneck for growth. And several people he knew lost their jobs because of it. I'm not sure if the company simply laid them off or moved them to different positions within the company, but the point remains: the jobs were no longer needed.

The project manager wasn't thrilled with that side effect, especially because he knows what's going on in the American economy.

Are You a Commodity?

So, are you a commodity? Can someone in India do your job for less?

More importantly, is there value that you deliver--or could start delivering--that would be too expensive or impossible for someone to do from India? That's the real question we need to ask ourselves: What value do we deliver?

Posted by cmaxcer on April 1, 2009 at 10:24 AM | Comments (19)