System iNetwork

August 2009

August 31, 2009 9:45 AM

Only Four Critical Developer Skills Needed?

Scott Klement dropped a free gift for most IBM i-focused programmers last week--he succinctly nailed down four of the most exciting and promising technology areas related to IBM i. More importantly, in just a few short sentences he explained why. It got me thinking: Are these the top four competency areas needed for the next leg of an i-focused developer's career? Are these skills that will not only let you excel with existing IBM i systems but pave the way for future endeavors? Or are there more than four?

To recap, here's the relevant snip:

What are a couple of the most exciting or promising technology areas that you see related to IBM i these days? How so?

Klement: PHP, MySQL w/IBM DB2 storage engine, external SQL procedures & functions on DB2 for i, and AJAX.

PHP: Exciting because it's free, mainstream, powerful and very easy to learn. You can quickly develop web applications in PHP, and the learning curve is short. It does not have the massive overhead or long learning curves of Java, but PHP is still mainstream and still produces modern web applications. (And, did I mention that it's free?)

MySQL: MySQL by itself isn't that exciting or new. But the IBM DB2 for i storage engine lets you use MySQL as a "database independence layer" of sorts. Files created by MySQL using this engine are actually physical files on disk that can be used natively from traditional languages like RPG and Cobol. You can share the files with all of the languages on your box. But, if written to use MySQL, you can move your programs freely to another platform and run them on MySQL on that platform, no changes needed. It's great to be able to develop software on my laptop, test it on my laptop, and move it in production on i, where it can use the same native database objects as my RPG programs. Good stuff! Even better, there are oodles of free (and very good) software packages for PHP/MySQL -- I can download them and run them on i with no changes. Because of the DB2 for i storage engine, they'll use native database objects that I can also access from traditional RPG, Cobol, native SQL, Java, and CL. Very powerful!

External SQL Procedures/Functions: A great way to write business logic in a business language like RPG--which remains the best language for writing business rules--yet have it callable from anywhere. It can be called locally, or over a TCP/IP network. It can be called from any language that supports SQL--which is to say, any modern language. Furthermore, it can be called from software like Microsoft Office where you can provide your own SQL statements to be run.

AJAX: I'm using the term "AJAX" to refer to code that runs in the browser, but interacts with the server. It's code that runs while the user is typing, or moving the cursor, in a browser interface. It lets you respond immediately to user's input, so they don't have to wait to click a submit button or hit the enter key to get feedback from the server. This lets you write rich user interfaces with immediate feedback to what the user is keying, the same modern user interfaces that users today crave and expect.

New Ways to Reach Users

In addition, Scott noted, "Let's face it, there's no future in 5250 screens or line printer reports. If you want to have a career as a programmer, you must invest in learning new ways to talk to your users. The recommended user interface in today's world, across all computer platforms, is the browser interface. Writing applications that are accessed through a web browser is the most critical skill for you to learn if you want to have a career tomorrow."

Along the lines of new ways to talk to your users, he added Microsoft Office interfaces.

We could toss in mobile interfaces, as in mobile phones like the iPhone and other rapidly evolving smartphones, but I'm not sure if that's a must-have skill yet. Certainly it wouldn't hurt to have mobile app development and delivery skills, but core for IBM i-focused programmers? Probably a ways off. . . .

Posted by cmaxcer on August 31, 2009 at 9:45 AM | Comments (23)

August 26, 2009 10:47 AM

Back-to-School: RPG & Beyond

Rounding out our Back-to-School special coverage, System iNetwork is offering a completely online web conference called RPG and Beyond. Because it's an online event, it doesn't have to take up a week of consecutive education and travel days--it's set for September 15-16 and 22-23. As you might guess, it's made up of online, live sessions led by some of the industry's most well-known experts, including Bob Cozzi, Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, Duncan Kenzie, Carsten Flensburg, Paul Tuohy, Aaron Bartell, Craig Pelkie, and Scott Klement.

RPG & Beyond includes a mix of free and for-cost sessions ($215 for all access). Here's the primary sessions:

• RPG for the Web: CGI RPG Basics (Cozzi)
• Top 10 Skills RPGers Should Have (Gantner)
• Processing XML with RPG (Paris)
• Essential Web 2.0 Development Skills for i Programmers (Kenzie)
• Using Data Queues in Modern Applications (Flensburg)
• Debugging Tools for RPGers (Gantner)
• PHP: Further Explorations (Paris)
• Introduction to AJAX for RPG Programmers (Tuohy)
• RPG Talks to the Desktop (Bartell)
• How to Link Microsoft SQL Server to Your IBM i (Pelkie)
• Rapidly Web Enable your IBM i 5250 Applications in a Cost Conscious Market (Pelkie and Kenzie)
• Excel Spreadsheets from RPG with POI (Klement)
• RPG User Defined Functions & Table Functions (Klement)
• Create Microsoft Word Forms That Work With Your IBM i (Pelkie)

For more detail, check out: http://www.pentontech.com/onlineconf/isn/rpgandbeyond09/.

Still not convinced the conference is right for you and/or your staff? System iNetwork Technical Editor Scott Klement answers a few questions.

So tell us, how does the RPG & Beyond mesh with some of the core issues attendees are facing in their jobs?

Klement: Today's IBM i programmers are being stretched two different ways. The economy has put them in a position where they have to maintain the status quo with limited resources. It's hard to find time to learn new
things.

At the same time, if they don't learn new techniques, they face obsolescence. It's a challenging time. How do you modernize when you only have the resources to maintain the status quo?

RPG & Beyond provides information about the key techniques you'll need to modernize, from the best speakers. You can see their talks straight from your desktop, no travel, no hotel expense, no need to spend days away from the office.

How about in their careers?

Klement: Let's face it, there's no future in 5250 screens or line printer reports. If you want to have a career as a programmer, you must invest in learning new ways to talk to your users. The recommended user interface in today's world, across all computer platforms, is the browser interface. Writing applications that are accessed through a web browser is the most critical skill for you to learn if you want to have a career tomorrow.

RPG & Beyond covers web interfaces, and it also covers Microsoft Office interfaces, which are extremely popular with users. Since I began teaching Microsoft Office as means of presenting RPG business logic, I've been surprised by the number of grateful letters I've received by attendees. "Revitalized my career" and "made me the star of the office" are common phrases found in those letters.

What about value and ROI? For instance, are the days of knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need long gone?

Klement: I'm a little disappointed in the way this question is asked. A phrase like "are the days of knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need long gone" sounds overly dramatic, like you're trying to blow things out of proportion in order to sell copy.

Let's not blow things out of proportion! When the economy is weak, and you're in a recession, businesses need to run "lean and mean". That means cutting expense wherever they can. It makes business sense to spend education dollars on what will provide ROI immediately, and to put off the "long term strategy" type education until the business or economy picks up.

When the recession struck last year, things got bad. Conferences weren't bringing in many people. But since that time, things have improved! Businesses have adjusted to the new economic reality. They've also realized that doing more with less means increasing the skill sets of their existing employees. The two most recent conferences I've attended have actually boasted increased attendance, not the decreases we were seeing earlier in the year.

As the economy improves more, knowledge-in-advance will continue to return to prominence.

What are a couple of the most exciting or promising technology areas that you see related to IBM i these days? How so?

Klement: PHP, MySQL w/IBM DB2 storage engine, external SQL procedures & functions on DB2 for i, and AJAX.

PHP: Exciting because it's free, mainstream, powerful and very easy to learn. You can quickly develop web applications in PHP, and the learning curve is short. It does not have the massive overhead or long learning curves of Java, but PHP is still mainstream and still produces modern web applications. (And, did I mention that it's free?)

MySQL: MySQL by itself isn't that exciting or new. But the IBM DB2 for i storage engine lets you use MySQL as a "database independence layer" of sorts. Files created by MySQL using this engine are actually physical files on disk that can be used natively from traditional languages like RPG and Cobol. You can share the files with all of the languages on your box. But, if written to use MySQL, you can move your programs freely to another platform and run them on MySQL on that platform, no changes needed. It's great to be able to develop software on my laptop, test it on my laptop, and move it in production on i,
where it can use the same native database objects as my RPG programs. Good stuff! Even better, there are oodles of free (and very good) software packages for PHP/MySQL -- I can download them and run them on i with no changes. Because of the DB2 for i storage engine, they'll use native database objects that I can also access from traditional RPG, Cobol, native SQL, Java, and CL. Very powerful!

External SQL Procedures/Functions: A great way to write business logic in a business language like RPG--which remains the best language for writing business rules--yet have it callable from anywhere. It can be called locally, or over a TCP/IP network. It can be called from any language that supports SQL--which is to say, any modern language. Furthermore, it can be called from software like Microsoft Office where you can provide your own SQL statements to be run.

AJAX: I'm using the term "AJAX" to refer to code that runs in the browser, but interacts with the server. It's code that runs while the user is typing, or moving the cursor, in a browser interface. It lets you respond immediately to user's input, so they don't have to wait to click a submit button or hit the enter key to get feedback from the server. This lets you write rich user interfaces with immediate feedback to what the user is keying, the same modern user interfaces that users today crave and expect.

Posted by cmaxcer on August 26, 2009 at 10:47 AM | Comments (3)

August 24, 2009 10:04 AM

Back-to-School: COMMON Directions and COMMON Focus 2009

In our ongoing Back-to-School special coverage, COMMON has a pair of educational events coming up in just a few weeks: COMMON Directions 2009 and COMMON Focus 2009. For the first time ever, both events are being held back-to-back with a one-day overlap, giving attendees the opportunity to attend sessions from both events.

COMMON Directions 2009 is September 14-15 while COMMON Focus is September 15-17. Both are at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis in, of course, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Directions has about 50 sessions while Focus has about a dozen all-day workshops to choose from. There's a variety of pricing options, ranging from single day rates to differences in costs for each conference (early bird COMMON member pricing for Directions is $640 while early birds can get Focus for $1,420; non-member pricing is a bit higher).

For more detail, including session grids and descriptions, check out http://www.common.org/conferences/2009/focus/index.html.

Still not convinced the conference is right for you and/or your staff? COMMON answered a few questions.

So tell us, how does COMMON Directions and Focus 2009 mesh with some of the core issues IBM i-focused attendees are facing in their jobs?

COMMON: COMMON has traditionally offered training for the complete gamut of i-related jobs, not just a single area like RPG programming. Through the combination of Focus and Directions, we offer a variety of sessions for managers, system administrators, and programmers developing applications in a variety of languages including RPG, Java, and PHP. We have also expanded beyond IBM i to cover all of the operating systems running on IBM Power Systems, including IBM i, Linux, and AIX. In planning education offerings, we have subject matter experts choose sessions they believe will be most beneficial to our membership.

Here are a few examples:

• For programmers, moving applications to the web is still a big issue. Programmers who attend Directions and Focus will learn how to do this.
  
• System administrators are getting their heads around using the hardware management console (HMC) and measuring performance. We've got that covered.
  
• Managers are interested in the higher level aspects of security and disaster recovery planning. COMMON being COMMON, we have the experts in the field giving these sessions.
  

How about in their careers?

COMMON: We know that IT changes quickly between the job one has today and the job one will have next week or next year--IT evolves. COMMON's education team strives to pick sessions that help our members solve problems today but also sessions that satisfy training needs for skills that are needed in the future as IT evolves. For example, someone might come for advanced RPG, but go home also knowing some PHP. Or, a system administrator may come to learn more IBM i security or operations but go home knowing much more about Power VM and managing partitions on IBM Power Systems.


What about value and ROI? For instance, are the days of knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need long gone?

COMMON: Our typical attendee easily justifies the cost of attending a COMMON conference by being able to come home and solve the problem at hand. This might take up 70-80 percent of the attendee's time at the conference.  However, given the wider scope of education offerings we bring to the table, it's difficult to ignore fitting a few sessions on technologies that will shape the attendee's job in the future, adding more value for this investment of time and money.  Also, because many of our members are in decision-making positions, understanding new technologies and how these can be used to bring value to their business even further justifies the investment.  

What are a couple of the most exciting or promising technology areas that you see related to IBM i these days? How so?

Well, it does depend on the attendees' core job responsibilities. System administrators are learning how to make more productive use of the power and flexibility of the new IBM Power Systems.  Logical partitions, virtualization, and the related technologies are reducing costs, saving energy, improving reliability, and making solutions possible that were previously unheard of.  

On the programming side, we're seeing great interest in PHP and MySQL under IBM i.

Posted by cmaxcer on August 24, 2009 at 10:04 AM | Comments (5)

August 13, 2009 1:09 PM

Back-to-School: ZendCon 2009

As August winds down, students start preparing themselves for a new grade of education. And so it is with IBM i-focused professionals. As summer winds down, it's time to get back to work, which does, of course, include education. What educational opportunities abound? Here's one to check out: ZendCon.

The fifth annual ZendCon conference focuses on the super hot PHP world. It's set for October 19-22, 2009 in San Jose, California and will be co-presented by Zend and S&S Media. The conference will likely be the largest gathering of the PHP Community.

At ZendCon 2009, sessions will focus on creating, deploying, and managing applications that take advantage of the speed, scalability, and simplicity of PHP. Five tracks will include sessions on topics including:

• Learning advanced PHP techniques for high performance, maintainability, rich web applications, database optimizations, IBM i, and more
• Deploying more reliable, secure, and higher performing PHP while saving costs
• Reusing code and frameworks that embody best practices for PHP
• Managing teams throughout the PHP application lifecycle for more productivity and governance from development/testing to deployment/maintenance
• Learning how operations and development peers and thought-leaders have solved PHP real-world challenges

For more information, check out http://zendcon.com.

Still not convinced the conference is right for you and/or your staff? Jim Dillard, alliance manager for Zend Technologies, Lt answered a few questions.

So tell us, how does your conference mesh with some of the core issues IBM i-focused attendees are facing in their jobs?

Dillard: "The two key themes Zend is hearing from the i community are:

1. leverage the current infrastructure / do more with what we have
2. budgets are tight

The good news for us and our customers is PHP works with both of these themes. Business requirements seemingly haven't stopped with the slowing economy so i shops continue to increase focus on how to get more out of their i. Many shops have excess capacity on their i, so creating PHP applications that run directly on i (accessing DB2/400, invoking batch apps, 5250) aligns with these themes.

As you know the Zend conference is focused on PHP so our main tracks will be PHP-centric."

How about in their careers?

Dillard: "Definitely. Expanding one's skill set is very important in this day and age. PHP, unlike other languages that have come and gone on the i, will be around for many moons on i so if Java wasn't your cup of tea then maybe PHP is.

Networking is always key at conferences. If management is looking for PHP talent to collaborate with the RPGers then there isn't a better place to look than ZendCon."

What about value and ROI? For instance, are the days of knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need long gone?

Dillard: "You are being told to do more with less yet in order to be paid more at your current employer, or elsewhere, you need to generate more value for your company and help your company generate more value from your customers. What are the technologies that enable this? PHP is clearly one. So it is hard for me to answer how would one value their own career and challenges at work."

What are a couple of the most exciting or promising technology areas that you see related to IBM i these days? How so?

Dillard: "#1: PHP. A seemingly biased answer but let me tell you why. Fact is PHP is here to stay on the platform and PHP continue to grow: more people programming PHP on i, more PHP apps in production, more Zend/IBM collaboration, more of the PHP ecosystem coming to IBM i (open source applications, technologies like Flex, etc.). Couple this with the ever
increasing web-based application requirements and there is a nice fit.

A second area has to do with Open Source movement in general. Not only are there 1000s of open source PHP applications available to run on i but there are many open source-type technologies are cropping that also run on i. Over the next couple of years I think some people will be surprised at the amount of 'open source' available on a platform which many used to characterize as proprietary."

Posted by cmaxcer on August 13, 2009 at 1:09 PM | Comments (0)

Back-to-School: RPG & DB2 Summit

As August winds down, students start preparing themselves for a new grade of education. And so it is with IBM i-focused professionals. As summer winds down, it's time to get back to work, which does, of course, include education. What educational opportunities abound? Here's one to check out: the RPG & DB2 Summit.

Set for October 13-15, the next System i Developer RPG & DB2 Summit will be at the Sofitel in Minneapolis.

The conference program includes four tracks spanning three full days, plus a fourth day of optional Headstart Seminars. The curriculum focuses exclusively on topics of interest to RPG and DB2 development professionals.

System i Developer is a consortium led by four i-focused partners: Susan Gantner, Jon Paris, Paul Tuohy, and Skip Marchesani.

In addition, the conference boasts some additional expert speakers: Scott Klement, Barbara Morris, Mike Cain, Kent Milligan, Bruce Vining, and Aaron Bartell.

Full disclosure: The RPG & DB2 Summit is sponsored by System iNetwork, in addition to IBM Systems Magazine.

System i Developer says it has significantly updated its agenda for 2009, focusing on practical, in-depth, use-it-today tips and techniques on topics ranging from RPG IV to SQL to modernizing program architecture as well as user interfaces. The four optional half-day Headstart Seminars on Monday, October 12 focus on SQL, PHP, Subprocedures and Service Programs, and HTML/Javascript/CSS for RPG developers.

Attendees can add seminars to their conference registration at $215 for one seminar or $295 for two. Early registration rates are $995 ($895 for Alumni) through August 31. Attendees can book rooms at the Sofitel for $99 a night.

For more information, check out http://www.systemideveloper.com.

Still not convinced the conference is right for you and/or your staff? Paris and Gantner answered a few questions.

So tell us, how does your conference mesh with some of the core issues your attendees are facing in their jobs?

Paris: "The majority of our attendees are career RPG programmers, team leaders, and senior technical staff. By focussing on topics with a direct relationship to their daily jobs we are able to provide a depth that other conferences cannot match. In addition we offer a number of 'stretch' topics designed to show them how RPG can operate in areas they might not have thought of and have allowed the Windows folks to own -- things like web services, XML processing, and incorporating technologies such as PHP into their application set."

How about in their careers?

Paris: "I think the answer -- particularly as it relates to the 'stretch' topics -- is the same. You cannot believe the number of people who write to us after the events thanking us for revitalizing their careers and giving them the desire to explore new avenues and techniques. The ones we publish on our web site are just a fraction of the total we receive. We only publish quotes when the individuals and/or their companies are willing to allow them to be identified. The speakers we use are all enthusiasts, too -- folks such as your own Scott Klement -- people who love to talk to the attendees one-on-one and encourage them in their future efforts."

What about value and ROI? For instance, are the days of knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need long gone?

Gantner: "I don’t think knowledge-in-advance-of-a-specific-need are gone. It’s just a different type of knowledge. The smart developer needs to know what kinds of things are feasible for them to do and with how much effort even if there’s not a compelling need for me to incorporate this into my application next week. Attendees will sit in the same session and get completely different things from it – one will be frantically capturing every nuance of the way the code is written because they need to implement it immediately while another will be taking in the big picture and thinking, 'Wow, I never would have known that I could do something like this from an RPG application.' Both types of knowledge provide value and ROI for an event."

What are a couple of the most exciting or promising technology areas that you see related to IBM i these days? How so?

Paris: "Provision and consumption of web services is a big thing. The growth in PHP adoption is heartening and some great stories are starting to appear. PHP is certainly one the the hot topics at Summit and we focus on it from an RPG perspective -- drawing the parallels and showing how it can be blended with RPG. The other biggie is the new DB2 Storage Engine for MySQL. That opens so many doors for the use of PHP and Java based packages on the i while still allowing RPG to be used to process the underlying data bases. That's a really exciting prospect."

Gantner: "Whenever someone asks about what’s exciting or promising, I immediately try to think of something new or an emerging technology. And there are plenty of those in our arena; e.g., integrating PHP and MySQL with our RPG applications has had quite an impact on some i shops and I believe will grow in importance as time goes on.

But to me, the most promising technologies are sometimes not new. A technology only becomes truly promising when people begin to need it and use it and sometimes it may not be new at all. An example is the use of SQL within our RPG applications. Many i shops learned how to embed SQL into an RPG program long ago. Figuring out where and why to use embedded SQL takes a lot more time. Lately, it seems to me that I’m running into more and more shops who have relatively recently reached the point where they have found some excellent uses for SQL in their applications.

Since those shops may have learned how to embed SQL years ago, you might think there’s nothing they need to learn at the Summit now that they have started to use it in earnest. Ah, but now they are just beginning to learn for the first time how different tuning for performance in an SQL application can be. Optimizing for performance and monitoring applications that use SQL is a critical skill. It’s not a new skill, but it seems that to have recently become an issue many shops. At the Summit, we have two of the best in the business of SQL performance in Michael Cain and Kent Milligan. Attendees at the Summit are often surprised at how much there is to know about this important topic.

It’s a long way around to saying that I think the effective and efficient utilization of SQL within RPG applications is, while not new, a promising technology for many shops today. Optimizing and tuning that environment has become the skill a lot of developers are only now coming to realize they need to know."

Posted by cmaxcer on August 13, 2009 at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2009 10:21 AM

Today's IT Regulations Just a Drop in the Bucket

For the August issue of System iNEWS magazine, I wrote a report on how industry regulations have been pushing IT initiatives and driving investment in compliance-related projects. Now, according to Gartner, all those regulations may be just a drop in the bucket.

Prepare to Be Hammered

"Three years ago Gartner published research predicting that either catastrophe from IT failure, or a continuing history of lower-level failures would provoke either a governmental regulation or industry self-regulation of IT products and services in the U.S. by 2015 and in the European Union by 2015 to 2018," notes Richard Hunter, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. "Although the exact date of arrival for regulation is difficult to predict, we believe that, in recent months, the tempo and intensity of the indications of such an event have increased."

Hunter says several recent articles describing the growth and scale of criminal hacking networks aimed at governmental and industry targets, as well as recent statements by representatives of the U.S. and U.K governments, indicate that the state of IT security is now viewed as unacceptably dangerous. Hunter also referred to the emphasis that U.S. President Barack Obama has placed on the importance of cyber technology and security in his appointments and public comments.

In addition, healthcare industry representatives have asked the Obama administration to hold software vendors liable for failures resulting from implementation of administrative software mandated by the U.S. federal government by 2014. Elsewhere, corporate customers are filing litigation against their IT providers with greater frequency.

The rise of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have generated increased concern over the extent to which personal data and the safety of minors are threatened by criminals using these networks to gain access to potential victims.

"All these events are taking place within a global climate that is shifting towards regulation on many fronts," Hunter explains. "As a result of the economic crisis, the social environment is considerably less trusting and secure. The public is wary of cascading risks and would seem to be supportive of legislation and litigation aimed at reducing those risks, including those posed by IT."

While neither supporting nor opposing regulation of IT, Gartner considers it increasingly likely and thinks it is probable that the EU will take formal steps to establish a regime for regulation of consumer-oriented IT products and services as early as 2011. Given the increasing likelihood of this scenario, Gartner advises IT vendors, service providers and user organizations to consider the implications of the regulation of IT on their businesses.

Add Some New Words to Your Contracts

Hunter says software vendors need to be aware that increased liability will drive generic software out of the market, and they should prepare for transparency and product/price differentiation based on quality and certified fitness for purpose. IT service providers should do the same and mitigate risks by incorporating strong documentation, audit right provisions and legal compliance terminology into outsourcing deals.

Enterprise technology users are likely to benefit from regulation in terms of clearly understanding the functions and features they buy but should be aware that they cannot outsource regulatory compliance. They should consider whether the liabilities applied to vendors will apply to them as well, and consider whether the enterprise is prepared to manage its processes to regulatory requirements.

For more detail, check out Gartner's full report on the subject, "Childhood Ends: The Signs Are Clearer" ($495).

Posted by cmaxcer on August 12, 2009 at 10:21 AM | Comments (4)

August 10, 2009 11:06 AM

IDC Ranks IBM as World Leader in IT Consulting

IDC has ranked IBM as the top worldwide IT consulting vendor in terms of revenue, IBM boasts. The ranking covers ten consulting vendors for the year 2008, and this is the second consecutive year that IBM has ranked first in this category.

"In this economic environment where there is a relentless focus on ROI, enhancing our clients' competitiveness and creating new sources of economic value from technology is critical," notes Adam Klaber, general manager of IBM's global consulting services.

In addition to the traditional IT consulting offerings such as IT performance analysis, governance and SOA, IBM says it's offering a variety of more non-traditional IT solutions in emerging areas such as Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing. With IBM's recent addition of its Business Analytics Optimization service line to its Global Business Services consulting organization portfolio, the company's IT consultants are also providing clients with value-added business analytics solutions that use technology to collect, analyze and use business insights to make strategic decisions in real-time. The transformation of IBM's services business to a higher-value, higher-margin orientation is fueling investments in emerging areas like analytics and smarter planet solutions, IBM says.

2009 Off to a Good Start

As I noted in last week's post, "Is IBM Still a Hardware Company?", the company's focus is likely to keep IBM at the top of this list for some time to come.

Despite the economy, IBM's global focus enables it to snag business in most areas of the world.

In IBM's most recent financial report to investors, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge noted, "We are investing in capabilities that will differentiate IBM in the future and accelerate the development of new market opportunities. For example, in support of Smarter Planet solutions, 25 percent of our research projects are dedicated to these initiatives which take IT well beyond its traditional data center boundaries. This requires both unique technical capabilities and skills, in areas like healthcare, transportation, telecommunications and utility systems," Loughridge said.

"From 2000 to 2008, the profit from software and services combined almost doubled," Loughridge added. "In 2009, we’re continuing to drive solid profit growth in software and services. In fact, we expect both software and services PTI to grow double-digits this year."

Meanwhile, the Mainframe Cloud Scores a Nice Contract

There's plenty of proof-points for IBM's active services engagements, the most recent of which is a contract with JVC KENWOOD Holdings, Inc., for a 2.6 billion yen, six-year strategic outsourcing contract with IBM Japan for the management of its IT systems and shared hosting services.

JVC KENWOOD Holdings will leverage cloud computing to create a dynamic infrastructure that acts more like the Internet to allow access to vast pools of technology resources during periods of high volume, IBM says. The new system will use IBM's Shared Hosting Services for IBM System z mainframes (zSHS) and will be hosted out of IBM's data center in Makuhari, Chiba, Japan.

Now, if you were IBM, might the best form of revenue be a combination of cloud computing hosted solutions and a wedged open door for more services sales?

I can see a world where IBM creates its own kick-butt hardware just to use in its own data centers to service its own customers. Why bother selling hardware to the end user customer at all? How many years until the last box ships to a customer and not IBM?

Posted by cmaxcer on August 10, 2009 at 11:06 AM | Comments (1)

August 5, 2009 10:46 AM

Is IBM Still a Hardware Company?

When I first started working in the tech industry back in the mid-nineties, it seems to me that IBM was very much associated with the hardware it produced--the AS/400 and then iSeries, of course, but also its mainframes and burgeoning AIX and Windows boxes. Regardless of the operating system, it seemed as if IBM's strategy was all about solutions centered around the hardware--start at the core and build out from there. Now, though, I think it's safe to say IBM has shed its hardware-centric reputation.

It's obvious, of course, that IBM has been focusing on software and services for quite some time. I'm just saying that it looks to me as if we have entered a phase where IBM has shifted its foundation to expertise and services offerings rather than the hardware and operating systems that support a business need.

Take the recent IBM Smart Market initiative as an example. The program targets small businesses by creating an ecosystem for the purchase, service, and support of appliance-like IBM Smart Cubes that run pre-packaged applications. These units are really cool, and they run IBM i (rock-solid, low-maintenance) and Linux (cheap yet also solid).

But it takes an awful lot of work to drill down to figure out what hardware and OS you're actually buying. The presumption is that SMB-sized buyers don't care about the hardware or OS, just the applications and IBM for the trouble-free service and support.

This strategy doesn't seem to be terribly off-base, but IBM could also promote the rock-solid, no-maintenance reliability of IBM i . . . and at the same time offer a box with a pre-configured Linux partition and say, "No matter what you want or how you grow, we can handle it."

Not Just the SMB World

IBM introduced its Smart Analytics System last week, which it bills as the industry's first comprehensive offering that brings the power of analytics to clients in just a matter of days. IBM says it is "taking advantage of its unique combination of software and hardware technology, industry knowledge, research math sciences and services expertise to help clients make more informed decisions faster than ever before."

While IBM mentions "hardware" in its press release, the company doesn't actually say what this hardware is. Here's a bit more detail:

The Smart Analytics System is a single, fine-tuned system optimized with the right balance of software, systems and storage capabilities for deep analytics computing workloads. It can uncover insights and hidden relationships among massive amounts of data -- not just structured information found in databases, but unstructured and incompatible data from such diverse sources as videos, emails, Web sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, archival data and more. This makes it well-suited to tackle some of the most complex problems associated with areas targeted for stimulus investments, such as financial risk management, smart grids, electronic medical records and management of healthcare costs, education, identity theft and fraud, and food safety.

The Smart Analytics System can harness the power of analytics to solve complex business problems as much as three times faster than other systems, while requiring up to 50 percent less storage -- saving both floor space and energy. A powerful analytics system that would have required the time of half a dozen or more technical experts to set up can now be deployed by as few as one, or none at all for smaller configurations. For most configurations, the system can be "analytics ready" in as few as 12 days.

And then on the IBM Smart Analytics System web site, IBM explains:

At the core of the IBM Smart Analytics System, you will find powerful warehouse and storage optimization capabilities. This foundation not only manages the data store but is essential for speeding system deployment and enabling advanced analytics.

Each configuration can be augmented at anytime to meet new requirements by simply adding new analytic capability or data and user capacity building block components. Moreover, because all of these components use the same foundation, the system is easy to maintain, preserves existing investments, and delivers results in days rather than months.

So what's the foundation of the Smart Analytics System? It's still hard to say, but I eventually found a link to a .pdf about IBM InfoSphere Warehouse 9.5 that implied that IBM InfoSphere Warehouse 9.5 was the foundation for the new system. Supported operating systems are Unix, Linux, and Windows, by the way. IBM i and z/OS weren't mentioned.

Then again, IBM's mainframes are capable of running thousands of Linux partitions, so why does z/OS even matter? And IBM i? Again, even an organization with a Power System can use the box to run just about anything.

Either way, IBM is selling a system that installs fast, and it seems to be focusing on capabilities, not trifling hardware, software, and OS details.

There's More

Of course, I've noticed lots of other subtle and hard-to-quantify shifts. It seems as if more and more IBM announcements and press releases contain far fewer mentions of the hardware systems that might be involved. If IBM announces a big sale, a new contract, or super new initiative, the hardware isn't mentioned where, in years past, it used to be highlighted, if not simply noted. I'm guessing this shift is in part due to the fractured infrastructure nature of so many companies and contracts these days, but also it seems as if IBM isn't interested in bothering with noting how and where its hardware is used.

When something specific is developed, the company definitely does note the hardware, as evidenced by last week's POWER7 upgrade news. Similarly, when POWER7 does ship, we'll hear a lot about performance.

In the meantime, IBM's focus is on software and services packages. With virtualization changing the way we interact with hardware, not to mention cloud computing, I'm not sure if this is inevitable, a side effect, or a conscious effort to build services and expertise as the new IBM differentiator.

Posted by cmaxcer on August 5, 2009 at 10:46 AM | Comments (5)

August 3, 2009 9:56 AM

New Technology Sessions on Tap for COMMON 2010

After all the brouhaha over its budget and speaker reimbursements following COMMON's meeting in Reno, the user group is, of course, forging ahead: the Call for Presentations for the COMMON 2010 Annual Meeting and Exposition in Orlando is now open. There's a possibility that COMMON might lose some great speakers, but who knows how it will actually shake out. Even more interesting is the content on tap for next year--COMMON is looking specifically for new sessions that provide an overview of new technologies or products.

COMMON says these sessions should concentrate on what the technology or product is, why it is important and where it can best be used. Even better, COMMON notes, are sessions that compare and contrast different technologies or products. In one of its open calls for sessions, COMMON puts it this way:

Now and then a new technology comes along that affects how we all do our jobs. Or a technology that has been around for a while suddenly takes on new importance in your business environment. As IT professionals it is important for us to spot the trends, understand what they have to offer and lead the charge; otherwise, we risk getting trampled when users or management start the stampede.

In particular, COMMON is on the lookout for new sessions that fit into these categories:

• Integration - mixing i, AIX and/or LINUX
• Encryption
• Cloud computing
• Blade
• Web 2.0
• Application Modernization
• Web Services
• Frameworks

The deadline for submissions is September 4. To submit a session, head over to http://common.confex.com/common/s10/cfp.cgi. For speaker reimbursement guidelines, check out http://www.common.org/conferences/speakers/benefits/guidelines.html.

Posted by cmaxcer on August 3, 2009 at 9:56 AM | Comments (2)