Sometimes you’ve just got to admire Big Blue’s chutzpah. Last Wednesday, the corporation announced that it had pretty much wrapped up the sale of its x86 server manufacturing division to Chinese giant Lenovo. Two days later, it made its latest Power Systems announcements with a press release entitled: “IBM provides clients superior alternative to x86-based…

A German electronics firm has chosen DB2 with BLU Acceleration over SAP HANA or SAP Business Warehouse Accelerator in a bid to speed up data delivery. Headquartered in Neuhausen, Balluff is a world-leading manufacturer of sensor solutions, employing around 2,750 people in 50 countries. The firm runs its operation on Power p and, as part…

Dutch i-based manufacturer Nedschroef has transformed its paper trail with some nifty gadgetry from IBM. The Helmond-headquartered group is Europe’s biggest supplier of automotive fasteners. It employs 1,500 people across 24 sites in 14 countries and generates over €500 million in revenues per year. The company receives around 200,000 invoices and delivery notes (the equivalent…

Swedish IBM i user group Data3 is gearing up for Höstkonferensen, its biggest annual event. The three-day conference at Stockholm’s Elite Hotel Marina Tower (pictured) will attract around 180 members and feature over 50 sessions, including workshops, from October 12 to 14. Speakers include IBM’s Steve Will, Ian Jarman and Tim Rowe plus a strong…

British IBM i specialist Proximity has signed a deal with America’s Raz-Lee Security. Proximity, which has offices in Leeds and Nottingham, will market and support Raz-Lee’s iSecurity suite of 15 products in the UK and Ireland. Proximity will provide implementation, configuration and assessment as part of the partnership. Raz-Lee’s iSecurity software suite includes tools to…

IBM employees in the States have been told to brush up on their cloud and mobile computing skills at the same time as taking a 10% pay cut. A memo sent to selected staff at the strategic outsourcing arm of Big Blue’s global technology services division said: “A recent assessment revealed that some GTS US…

The latest version of HelpSystems’ Power i job scheduling and batch management tool Robot/SCHEDULE features new file event monitors. In Robot/SCHEDULE version 12, event monitors can be set to watch for IFS file creation, removal and growth as well as physical file member changes that are used to trigger jobs further down the job stream.…

Canada’s Fresche Legacy has bought Australian IBM i apps modernisation specialist looksoftware. The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, comes twelve months after Fresche Legacy took over British application and database analysis outfit Databorough, best known for its X-Analysis solution. Under the terms of the agreement, looksoftware has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Fresche Solutions…

ERP giant Infor’s European conference schedule gets underway in November with plenty on the agenda for Power i people. Inforum 2014 hits Frankfurt from November 4-5, Paris from November 6-7,  London from November 11-12 and Amsterdam from November 14-15. Infor has around 19,000 customers around the world that are running one of its many IBM…

IBM made the most cash from Unix servers in this year’s second quarter but Oracle sold the most machines. That’s according to an erudite analysis of the latest figures from Gartner by Timothy Prickett Morgan on EnterpriseTech. Prickett Morgan’s reading of the Gartner ‘s latest worldwide quarterly server stats has Oracle down as shipping 11,108…

IBM has signed a number of deals that point to an improvement in its fortunes in China. Big Blue looked like it was dealt a mortal blow in the world’s second biggest economy after being caught in the cross-fire caused by Edward Snowden’s revelations last year. But now local server manufacturer Inspur will use DB2…