IBM

IBM takes back SUN offer - BAD IDEA SUN!

I think everyone at SUN is happy for now. I am not sure how good this is for them long term. I don’t think SUN has what it takes to keep selling nothing. I don’t know what SUN has to offer the IT world. Solaris is free, OpenSolaris is even more FREE and the hardware they are putting out is lack luster and not even as good as anything DELL or HP has. Sadly I think SUN should have taken the offer and called it  day. Next thing they will be asking the government for a hand out.

LINK :: Linux Journal - IBM Lets Sun Set

Al Barsa Scholarship

I didn’t know Al as well as others at COMMON, but in Nashville I was able to spend a few more moments with him than in the past. Always opinionated and always willing to share. Little did I know it would be the last time any of us would get to talk to him. 2008 was not a good year, it started with my Father-in-law passing away, the Al, then my to young to die Brother-in-Law in Utah. I guess we are all too young to die, but I digress.

Common has announced the Al Barsa Scholarship, which I think is a great idea. Hats off to them and I am sure somewhere along the way Al would have told them they were doing it al wrong, Anyway I think it’s a super idea and he would have approved.

Where is the SUN buyout?

I really thought SUN was going to get purchased by IBM and then come to find out IBM may be laying off 5000 employees? Come on IBM, you know you didn’t have to do that? Seems like the past 20 years of IT have been very up and down. I wish it would level out for just a bit.

Is IBM about to buy SUN for $7 billion?

LINK :: NYT - IBM said to be in talks to buy Sun for $7 Billion

I think this is long over due. Sun has been twisting in the wind for way to long with way to many decent products (Solaris, StarOffice, SSO, EIM, Java, OpenSolaris,MySQL), that they like IBM can’t figure out how to sell any of it.

IBM has, in recent years, done a better job than SUN but not by much. Part of the problem SUN has is Jonathan Schwart. He is has said nothing innovative in the past 7 years to spur on anything but declining sales and even less innovation from SUNs staff.

SUN also has a bad habit of brain washing executives and releasing them into the wild so that they can convert IT, all the while these brain washed zombies who think SUN is going to save the world end up destroying companies, ruining IT departments and in the end are nothing more then SUNs evil puppets. Sadly all to often they end up in decent hard working IBM shops trying to find chinks in the armor and can’t so they just start ripping the walls down like gorrilas who is unhappy with the decorations in thier painted white cages. They should have stayed at SUN where they belonged, in the fold, on the mother ship.

OK, to be fair, IBM has zealots too, and I know that, but you don’t rip and replace when something has been working well for over a decade. I have been in more than one place where some past executive from one of the big three has shown up and decided his former company could come in and do it all for less. Well if that was the case then why didn’t we do that 10 years ago smarty pants, oh I know because SUN has been on the edge of DEAD now for so long no one trust the investment.

You don’t buy a car you want a warranty on from a car company that is going out of business, why the heck to you think GM is not selling cars right now? No one will know if they are going to be there in 6 months.

You can have the best widget in the world with the best colors, but if you are not going to be around to support it in 6 months or a year then no one will want it, except the stupid, and that is what you end up with when you hire a former IT Exec from SUN or Microsoft who wants to rip and replace everything  for no decent reason. You also have to question everyone sanity who hired he or she.

SUN is the expensive IT choice, nothing they make is cheap or even FREE unless you pick thier OPEN lines. Even those can be supported for a cost. A big cost but a cost none the less.

SUN has failed to do anything with SPARC and also has failed to really break open the server market with it’s pathetic little pizza box servers that are so sad looking when you open them up that you wonder which laptop company sold them the bits to barley fill the case?

Apple and Sun would have made the most sense, but Apple has a problem thinking about big IT, and IBM seems to have a pretty good hold on big IT, while strugguling with small IT.

So I did use this post to rant a bit about the demise, thank goodness, of SUN and the rise of IBM. I think if IBM were smart they would take everything SUN has in house, close up shop on SUN. Retain the decent people. I do know a few, and take that technology I mentioned before, port it to POWER and offer it up. IBM at that point in time will have a killer offering. Please don’t kill the OPEN projects, we need them for the sake of innovation. IBMs next move, NOVELL!

Well in the long term if IBM does take in SUN I hope to have OpenOffice in every Lotus product soon, and move to what I consider a better office suit than the “other guy”

Good Luck IBM.

I spoke to soon, IBM is discounting…

I just posted that IBM is not doing anything, and I have to take some of that back now. According to THE FOUR HUNDRED they are offering iLoyalty Blitz for all current IBM i owners.

LINK :: IT Jungle - THE FOUR HUNDRED - IBM and Resellers Do the iLoyalty Blitz

“The basic idea, according to the internal documents that I have been able to get my hands on concerning the iLoyalty Blitz, is to get customers interested in new Power Systems i machinery with “as few touches as possible” and the hopes of closing a sale in only two phone calls. The first call to the customer is a value call, to discuss the benefits of moving to the new technology and sharing some examples of how moving to a new Power Systems i box can cost no more or even less than supporting a vintage OS/400 machine. That first call is to get some detailed information so the salesperson can do a tailored pitch in the second call and then toss in these two deals mentioned above and any other applicable discounts, rebates, and promotions, as well as low-rate or deferred-payment financing for the system from IBM Global Finance.” - Timothy Prickett Morgan

IBM Discount Bin

I am always looking to save money. I am an Apple owner and have been, yet I have never purchased a new Mac from Apple. I always go to the discount bin. Most people who are all glazed over about buying an Apple don’t look down the page to see there is a discount bin at Apple.

Link :: Apple Refurbished Store

IBM has the same thing going on and you can buy anything from Laptops to Mainframes. So if you are looking for a good deal on an IBM product and are not picky then this is the site for you IBM Bargain Hunters.

LINK :: IBM Certified Equipment or IBM’s Bargain Basement!

When ECONOMY cost more

I was playing on IBMs site, configuring an Intel Server and found a choice that seemed odd. The ECONOMY PACKAGE on the 1U Intel Server I was looking at drove the price up $184 vs. the BASE Hardware?

The Economy Package should not cost more?

IBM Try and Buy POWER Servers

1. Sun did this a few years back and it was a hug success, IBM is now offering you a chance to “barrow” an IBM Power System to try and if you like all you have to do is keep it and pay up sucker!

LINK :: 60 Day No Cost Trial - TRY & BUY

Here are the Details I COPY & PASTED from IBMs site so you could them here and then decide if you wan to sign up.

Take advantage of this test drive now:

• Evaluate for yourself how the IBM Power Systems cost-efficient and stable solution stacks up against your own platform.
• Discover how Power Systems platforms give superior performance, using unique vitalization technology, self-healing and self-managing capabilities.
• If you do decide to buy, it may be because you see that a purchase can help reduce your acquisition costs and help lower your total cost of ownership.

Here’s how the Program works:

1. Choose a configuration.
2. Fill out the contact information. You will be contacted within 24 hours to clarify and validate the information.
3. If approved, an IBM Business Partner or IBM Sales Representative will then contact you to arrange shipment and extend a trial agreement to you. Our program goal is to have the machine arrive at your location no later than 1 week after signing the trial agreement.
4. Should you decide not to keep the machine at the conclusion of the 60 day trial, please notify the IBM Business Partner or IBM Sales Representative, pack the machine in the original packing material, and return it to the address specified by the IBM Business Partner or IBM Sales Representative.

NOTE: I know in the previous post I busted IBM for not being UP TO DATE, and while this is a nice start, there needs to be more!

Down Economy & I still can’t order anything from IBM

The world is a buzz with talk from Economist about the sour economy. Everyone has a opinion on what we should do and yet you don’t see many CEO’s talking what to do? I find that bit hard to pathom. I think every CEO should be telling the world how they plan to increase sales, or at least rub the market the right way.

IBM has been particularly quiet, and while I didn’t expect them to put up a huge “SALE” sign on the web site, I did expect to see some huge bit of information about the POWER platform being on sale, or at least drop the price a little so that people start to really look a bit longer. Now if you head over to IBM’s site you will see some new prices listed in GREEN that are looking pretty good.

My other beef with IBM is this. Say I want to buy a DELL or HP Server I log into the site and find the specs I want and then buy the server. Recently I needed a small 1U web server for my personal use. I went to a few sites, found the server I wanted, changed some of the specs and started to think, Why can’t I log onto IBM and buy a POWER server running Linux right off the site? I could, I take that back, but it’s going to cost me well over $7000 for the unit and it’s not a 1U or 2U unit?

My gut feeling is IBM is not changing the way they interface with the public, they seem to make it as hard as possible to purchase anything from them. I don’t want to contact a business partner, I want to order from IBM, I want a reasonable price and I want it to ship in the next two weeks!

Is anyone at IBM listening, the market has changed and IBM is not, and they are still wondering why sales are sucking?

All is Quiet at IBM weeks before COMMON

IBM gets tight lipped this time of year and they don’t share much along the lines or “NEW” POWER based technology. This would explain why I am not blogging much. So I am putting out the word, to all companies who are not IBM and are in the POWER platform market. If you want me to review your software, review a tool or some hardware. I HAVE FREE TIME!

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT- If this had been a decent blog post you would have enjoyed it and not seem me for my cheesy begging.