i on Power

Biased CIOs spend more money and don’t solve problems, they create them

What happens when an IBM AS/400, iSeries, System i, i5/OS, POWER System, Lotus Domino/Notes) IT shop doing fine, keeping the company running and is stable, has happy employees, happy users and then out of no where a new CIO or IT Manager is hired who:

1. Does not understand IBMs offering from both the IBM Systems side and the Lotus side?
2. Is biased towards another major technology company for no other reason or with out any logic or facts.

Bias is defined as; a particular tendency or inclination, esp. one that prevents unprejudiced consideration of a question; prejudice.

Now that we have established what bias is we can move on with the problem.

So there you are a loyal and hard working IBM i Admin, you and the Lotus Admin work hard to keep the company running. The companies main application for work is housed on the IBM i and everyone uses mail that comes out of Lotus Notes, plus Lotus has a feature no other application server has out there, rapid visual development, and there is always the one Lotus Developer, building applications for end users so they they can store information, access different types of data and make use of the Lotus and IBM i applications, and extend them to the company.

Everything is humming along, working well. Cost are in check, and with even more consolidation to the IBM i you could save more money.

The one summers day, or any season for that matter, a new CIO or IT Manager is hired into your company. Right after he says hello to everyone, his next comment is “We are going to replace all that IBM technology with Microsoft (or SUN).”

Continued »

What “i” want in 2009

Over the years the “i” people have wanted  for many things. The want list is long and heavy every year with the same things, and every year like a fat person on a diet for the first two days of the year, it falls apart the first time you drive by Krispy Kreame and the “HOT” light is on. Every year at COMMON we get what we want and hear what we need to hear and then NOTHING happens.

We never get what we wanted, to be slimmer, more wildly accepted and everyone’s best friend. Now I am not saying overweight people can’t have friends, but what I am saying is every year we ask for IBM to do something special this year with the IBM i (or AS/400, iSeries, System i, & i5/OS) and make it a stand out year with everyone wanting to join IBM i’s Facebook page, but I think in 2010 we will be asking again for the same things all over again just like that diet.

IBM needs to evaluate the entire marketing team behind POWER systems. I am anti-losing your job, but when you are not doing your job, you need to lose it. IBM also needs to re-think every stuck up know it all executive that is holding back anything that could potentially sell the IBM i. I know I am asking for drastic measure, but for over 20 years the IBM i has been suffering and not because of people like me who love the system, because IBM fails to do anything right by the system. We need a guerrilla marketing campaign, and not two months of yo-yo marketing and the dry spell for the reast of the year.

IBM need to take a page out of a few other companies play books and figure out for once how to market the most stable, easy to administer and flexible system on the market today, and I am not talking about convoluted Linux or UNIX, I am talking about the IBM i. It’s just too damn simple and to powerful to ignore.

The next thing that needs to happen is every CIO and Director of IT that has every dismissed the IBM i for being junk or not UNIX like needs to be sent home and without any money. They are all in fact morons and have no idea what a powerful and consolidate-able server they are trying to remove from their IT shop. If you have file servers and they are on Windows, you are wasting your money. If you have print servers and they are on Windows you are wasting your money. If you have Database servers and they are on anything but the IBM i, you guessed it, you are wasting your money. If you have Websphere Servers and they are on anything but the IBM i, you are wasting your money. If you have Web Servers with PHP and HTML, and they are not on the IBM i, you are again wasting your money. If you have web applications that need LAMP, and they are not on the IBM i, you are, yes I am going to say it, wasting your money. If you run Domino on anything but IBM i you are wasting your money. Are you getting the picture? Once large IBM i system can do all this and integrate it all with each other and has Single Sign-on for all systems.

More “C” level morons every day keep buying Windows, and Linux and all kinds of systems to confuse and grow IT. You grow it to a point where no one can mange it and most companies hate having big IT departments anyway. What if you have a data center with ONE, yes ONE IBM i Server? That would be so smart and long term would save you loads, I mean loads of cash. Who in this economy can throw away money? Is your CIO or Director of IT wasting money with many Windows OSes when he could only need one OS license? How many virus prone, unstable Windows Servers do you own vs. the one IBM i server that has a very strong security system with no way a virus could infect it? How much do you spend on Anti-virus software for all those severs?

Most medeium to large comapnies haveover 30 Windows Servers doing lord knows what. Sometimes you have to have Windows servers, but my guess would be you really don’t need them if you didn’t want them. Everyone of the Windows servers needs to be managed by another server and they need Anti-virus licensese. Now your talking even more expense, and every so often Microsoft releases a new version which is included with the support cost on the IBM i and is not for the Windows, so there you go needing to buy 30 new Windows licenses to upgrade. This is getting expensive.

Then you have to have a server to manage those servers, and fail over servers. Be fore you know it you have entirly to many servers from one MCSE to handle and you then have to hire ore people and those new people all want to buiold more server, so then you have 40 and then 50 servers and your costs are now out of contol. In IBM i land you have one server that can grow as needed and one ail over server that can grow as well. One OS, and no servers to manage your server to manage your applications.  IBM can provide you an IBM Hot spare for a fraction of the cost and you don’t have to pay for another complete license for the OS, all you do is pay for what you own.

Lastly, why can’t IBM get this kind of detailed hard hitting information in front of CIOs, not because is all made of or a lie, but because it’s the truth and would end up making them look like fools, and who wants to invite in a sales person who is going to point out the last five years of the CIOs time at some company he was doing nothing but make bad, uneducated, crappy decisions that are costing them hundreds of thousands of IT dollars, in some cases millions.  It takes a big man to admit they made all the wrong moves, wasted millions and need to be fired for fraud, waste, and abuse.

IBM, you need to stop playing Mr. Nice Company. Stop sugar coating your offerings, lower the price and play hard ball with the IT world. If today you sell 500 IBM i 515 Series boxes and you lowered the cost a bit so that you sold oh, 2000 that would in fact be better, becasue long term those shops would see the value of the IBM i and might invest more into larger boxes to consolidate more servers. I am sure someone at IBM has said that, then all the top level smarty pants point out he is wrong and sent him packing. Well smarty pants executive, you are wrong and he was right!

IBM you also need to learn who the bloggers are and when something new comes out you need to send them information, let them hard test the hardware of software and get them to do your bidding. I have been asking IBM for years to send me a 515 or anything to review and IBM being the stuck up fortress they are can’t seem to see the benifit of me or System i News from taking a new thingie, testing it and talking about it. FREE marketing, but yet they fail to see that, so in 2009 please send me some hardware to review. Send me something to review. Hell just call me and tell me NO, but all I every get from IBM is “no comment” and “NO, we dont do that”….

What about the SMART CUBE, would that not be a great place to start. Send out some Demos to the IBM i bloggers out there and let them talk it up. Unfortunantly IBM does not see the value in this tryp of marketing. Word of mouth marketing is I guess “crap” to them. I am also trying to get the Lotus group to send me a Ltus Foundtation server for me to demo and maybe present  session at COMMON about it, but he talks have been slow and  am still waiting to hear back from them. I think I have a better chance of getting a Lotus Foundations thanks to the free thinking Lotus people.

Now I am no fan of SUN, and I think they have blown it big time and are down on their Solaris luck right now. The all know Jonathan Schwarts, who I think is a hard pill to swallow most days, in 2006 offered up a FREE Sun Server to anyone who would write up a review. I am not asking to for IBM to do the same, but at least putnew product in the hands of the people who an talk it up.You can even take it back after a period of time, but there proof your marketing is failing you and proof that bloggers are the furture of community and people marketing.

You also don’t sell as many small IBM i servers as you would like, but that never stops you from being a crappy marking company either? Send me a demo and I will tell the world what they are missing. It’s hard for me to sit here all day telling every how great the server is and I have nothing to back it up. Bloggers need to review products, show they touched it and it’s awesome. Blogging is not something I do to make sure all my BFFs all know what I had for lunch. We are doign this to better the community, to answer question, make the hard press when something stinks and shout when something rocks! People listen to what we have to say too, and we need IBMs support to make it happen as well. Thel Lotus Bloggers has huge IBM support while the IBM i and POWER bloggers stuggle and claw in hopes to build up a comminuty of IBM i and POWER based bloggers talking about new and exciting stuff.

I could have been nice about this and not beat up IBM, and I am sure they could care less how I approch his subject. I love IBM, I think Lotus and IBMs products are far more market ready then anyone else in the same space. I love the POWER hardware, and I can’t get enough Lotus 8. All of these things rock, but IT Manager and CIOs are not getting it. I know those people read what I have to say and they have admins and developers who read these blogs and they go back and share. If I was to review a 515 I am sure someone would say, we need that for a project I am working on and buy one, maybe two. I reviewed, a while ago, a new System i 570 and our fail over system, I think it was a 550. I still get email to this day asking about that review and what I would recommend or how we did HA? IBM are you getting this. I can do things with this blog you only dream about? The crazy part is I pulled it sometime ago becasue the company that owned the server asked me to. It’s archived somewhere and people find it and email me questions. What would they do with a real post about a new 515, Smart Cube or Lotus Foundtation Server?

In 2009 I want the IBM i to get traction, I want to review POWER based systems, and I want Lotus Products to out sell the competitor. It’s all possible and I am willing to help, are you IBM willing to make it happen?

Send me your POWER Systems, your blades, and your smart cubes and I will review them all. Be fair and help you increase sales.

Running Domino on the IBM i - Please update

Dear IBM,

Please update this page for 2009. (LINK TO PAGE:: IBM i Benchmarks) If you plan on making sales of hardware and software you need to keep your stats current. This web page you provide was relevant in 2003, but is not some 5 years later now that we are on Domino version 8.0.2, and 8.5 is right around the corner.

That is all,
David Vasta

IT Jungle - IBM Cuts Deals on CPU and i5/OS for 550, 570, and 595 Boxes

Link :: IBM Cuts Deals on CPU and i5/OS for 550, 570, and 595 Boxes

“We’re almost into the fourth quarter and just finishing up the last couple of business days in the third quarter, and that means IBM is looking to cut some deals on CPU cores and i5/OS licenses to make some dough out of the System i installed base.”

IT Jungle - IBM Starts Cutting Deals on Power Systems i for Q4

Link :: IBM Starts Cutting Deals on Power Systems i for Q4

“Last week, I was talking to a downstream Power Systems reseller, one of the guys with a few hundred customers that he tends to with new systems, upgrades, software configuration, application tuning, and so on, to make his daily bread. By the sweat of his browser, as it were. And guess what he told me? He had no System i or Power Systems i deals at all in the pipeline for the remainder of the fourth quarter. None. Nadda. Zilch. Zip.

By the way, it has been a long time since this has happened to this particular reseller. We’re talking as bad as post-9/11, and maybe worse. Neither he nor I know for sure, because no one knows how bad the economy really is yet. But what this reseller does know is that his customers, some of which are fairly large midrange shops, have absolutely slammed the brakes on any new systems spending.”

IBM Smart Cubes - I would like to demo one and review it

The Smart Cube from IBM has been getting lots of talk around the web, just not much from IBM? I want to see some real details and when I go to IBM’s web site and search for “Smart Cube”, I get nothing. Once again IBM DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO MARKET ANYTHING THEY SELL!

IBM has become one of the most frsutrating companies to deal with from a product and delivery stand point.

The only press release I can find is missing :: LINK HERE

Thank goodness for the ITJungle, as they seem to have more details about the product than IBM does at this time.

Links to all the details I can find:

LINK :: Is the Smart Cube the New i?

LINK :: A Little More Detail on the Smart Cube and Its Market

LINK :: IBM Press Release - IBM Launches “Smart Business”  New Computing Paradigm for SMBs in India; Ready-to-Use IT 

“These Power-based machines are not, I have learned, going to get the nifty new boxes that the Lotus Foundations X64 appliance that was (announced a few weeks ago are getting, but will be in the same tower boxes that a regular Power Systems machine uses. The Power versions of the Smart Cube will be made in Rochester, Minnesota, and in Dublin, Ireland, which is where entry Power Systems machines and earlier AS/400, iSeries, and System i boxes were also manufactured. So it is important to realize that, as far as I know, these Power-based appliances are not being made in China. However, the Lotus Foundations and very similar Smart Cube X64 appliances are made in China, and that probably gives them a distinct manufacturing cost advantage.”

Ross Mauri - Chat Transcript from iSociety

Ross Mauri is the new POWER SYSTEM Exec at IBM over all the POWER SYSTEMS. iSociety held a fireside chat with him to find out how things are going at IBM with the new single hardware platform, POWER!

Here is the Transcript @ iSociety

IBM Get your i act together please

I was riding home from work in my car and on the radio came an IBM i ad, or maybe I should say a System i ad. It was one of the IBM Drive-Thru commercials that I truly do like, but in the end they were still selling the System i Express? IBM if you plan of anyone taking you seriously in the IBM i space and you want to have the right to complain that some people still use the term AS/40, then you have to be organized enought to all be on the same marketing page and not contenue to call a system you renamed over 9 months ago what you used to call it. I closed my eyes and was sad for a second becasue I knew IBM has still no clue how to market anything they own.

RedPapers - Going Green with IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager

Energy efficiency of data centers is a critical priority for IT managers. As energy and power costs become a significant portion of IT costs, understanding and investing in energy management has never been more important. IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager, an extension of IBM Systems Director, helps you to monitor and manage the power usage of systems. Originally designed to support IBM BladeCenter and System x, Active Energy Manager now supports the power management of additional IBM systems, including POWER6 processor-based systems, as well as storage devices through the intelligent Power Distribution Unit (PDU+).

LINK :: RedPapers - Going Green with IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager

IT Jungle - IBM Doubles the Cores on Midrange Power Systems

LINK :: IT Jungle - IBM Doubles the Cores on Midrange Power Systems

“Well, the rumor going around that IBM is doubling up the processor core counts on its Power Systems servers, which are based on the company’s dual-core Power6 processors, turns out to be true. Last Tuesday, IBM announced that it has doubled up the cores in the Power 570 to a maximum of 32, and now is also offering a 16-core box called the Power 560 that slides in underneath it in the product line. As expected, IBM also doubled the core count on entry Power 520 and midrange Power 550 machines when running the i 6.1 (formerly OS/400 and i5/OS) operating system to four and eight cores, respectively, bringing the i variants to parity with AIX and Linux boxes that shipped in April.” - IT Jungle

This is good news, more power is always good. Companies who need more CPU and more capacity are probably really happy today. This is what a midrange system today should look like and for those shops that upgraded recently to the new POWER 570, sorry, but if you wanted the best and fastest hardware you should have waited until tomorrow to purchase….