Newswatch.UK Headlines

International bank blazes trail with iSCSI connectivity (12/07/06)
One of Indonesia’s biggest banks and IBM Business Partners Triangle have implemented a trailblazing project using iSCSI technology to link BladeCenter servers to the System i.

Ten sports clubs sign up for i5-based ticketing in a year. (12/07/06)
Hull Kingston Rovers is the tenth sporting organisation to sign up to use TALENT Sport on System i5 this year, following Castleford Tigers RLC, Panathinaikos FC, Sheffield United FC, Coventry City FC and Chester Races. And this month the Stadium Management Company at the Lakeside Sports Complex, Doncaster, has bought the system to manage the ticketing for Doncaster Rovers FC, Doncaster Rovers Belles Ladies FC, Doncaster Lakers RLFC and Doncaster Athletic Club.

Listening to iSeries customers pays off for Infor’s SOA strategy. (11/29/06)
Infor is a different kind of software company -- four years old with 30+ years’ experience. There’s a consistent 95% customer retention rate (one of the highest in the industry) and 72% of licence revenues are generated by the company’s current customers. And with 25% of its 70,000 customers on iSeries, Infor is home to some major iSeries vendors, such as Geac/JBA, BPCS, Mapics, plus other smaller solutions.

System i NEWS UK columnist comments on Windows Vista roll-out. (11/29/06)
On November 30, Microsoft begins the roll-out of its new operating system, Windows Vista, and the latest version of its suite of productivity software, Office 2007. How important is this new development? Campbell Lee's Jim Lee, our regular Midrange Matters columnist, hopes you have the horsepower..

As System i revenues falter, System z sales help maintain IBM’s top spot in worldwide server sales. (11/23/06)
System i sales may have fallen year-on-year in the third quarter by 22% according to Big Blue’s own figures, but IBM is top dog in overall server sales worldwide, according to the latest analyst figures.

British Sugar keeps lights out with Halcyon and i5. (11/23/06)
In 2004, British Sugar decided to replace its mainframe-based ERP package with JDE One World, running on iSeries. One World, now running on an i5 system, supports British Sugar’s six manufacturing and two packaging sites which operate 24x7x365. With 300+ users, One World’s performance and availability is critical to the smooth running of the organisation.

Refurbished System i pilot scheme exceeds target (11/20/06)
A 12 month pilot operation between IBM UK and its fulfilment partner for certified refurbished iSeries products, GCH Distribution of Cirencester, has exceeded its targets by 60% in its first quarter.

Vision and iTera announce merger creating world's largest System i high availability vendor (11/10/06)
Thoma Cressey Equity Partners announced at the beginning of November that it has finalised its acquisition of Vision Solutions and iTera, Inc, making the concern the world’s largest System i high availability vendor. Concurrently, Vision Solutions and iTera are merging and the newly formed enterprise is privately held by Thoma Cressey. Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.

Bargains to be found in buoyant second-user market (11/02/06)
Why do users buy second-user systems? Given the large installed base of iSeries, with loyal owners, Mark Owens, business development manager, IBM Global Asset Recovery Services believes most will not want to upgrade to the latest technology for some time, and some will need disks, memory or cards that are no longer being manufactured, marketed or sold as new.

Academic Initiative to bring new recruits to System i in the UK (11/02/06)
IBM’s System i Academic Initiative, which aims to bring new blood to the platform by forging partnerships with educational institutions, has borne its first fruit in the UK.

Reader feedback -- The numbers racket (07/13/06)
Last week, iNEWSWire UK reader Stephen Behan sent us the following letter stating the case for making i5/OS and, indeed, Windows, open source. So, what do you think? Have your say by dropping us a line.

Calor Gas selects DataMirror iCluster for 24/7 data access. (07/13/06)
A leading provider of real-time data integration and protection solutions, DataMirror, is supplying the UK’s key provider of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), Calor Gas, with its iCluster high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) software solution to guarantee 24/7 access to its mission-critical corporate data and ensure that accurate data flows across the enterprise.

iSeries mobile solution keeps track of 1,000 engineers nationwide. (04/27/06)
Facilities management services supplier Romec has 1,000 service engineers throughout the UK who stay in touch using a mobile data solution which links to the company’s Infor (formerly Geac) System21 running on an iSeries system through a link based on Big Blue’s MQSeries. Romec operates two model 800 iSeries for production and backup.

Inaugural webcast highlights IBM’s web-enablement “hidden gem”. (04/27/06)
iSeries web specialist Morpheus has teamed up with us to present the very first iSeries NEWS UK webcast at 4pm on May 11. The special one hour webcast is entitled “Master the iSeries legacy-to-web challenge” and, as such, covers possibly the hottest subject for iSeries managers today.

System i Academic Initiative Programme produces new recruits in rest of Europe and comes to UK soon. (04/27/06)
A scheme aimed at bringing new blood to the iSeries/System i ecosphere is gaining momentum in mainland Europe and could soon be producing new recruits to the platform in the UK, according to IBM.

NHS computerisation programme could be a shot in the arm for iSeries. (03/23/06)
The UK iSeries market may soon be boosted significantly if an American company that specialises in software for the health care market get its way.

iSeries-based ticketing and CRM system scores at Greek club Panathinaikos. (03/23/06)
Panathinaikos Football Club has signed up to use Software4Sport's ticketing and CRM system, TALENT Sport. The system is currently being installed on an iSeries Model 825 and will go live in time for next season. The iSeries – a beast with 6,000 CPWs and five logical partitions – is run by Panathinaikos owner the Vardinoyannis company, which owns Greece’s largest oil refinery Motoroil Hellas, a shipping company, Athen International, and other interests.

New Microsoft programme woos iSeries ISVs to .Net (02/24/06)
Microsoft has opened another front in its bid to woo members of the iSeries community over to its Windows/.NET platform. A recently launched programme entitled NXT is aimed firmly at iSeries-oriented independent software vendors (ISVs) and the Redmond giant has enlisted the help of a number of offshoring outsourcers for its delivery.

Renault Nissan migrates from ancient mainframe to iSeries. (02/24/06)
A provider of application portfolio management (APM) tools, HAL Knowledge Solutions has completed a landmark project for Renault Nissan Suisse SA –- migrating its core business applications from parent company Renault Nissan’s central IBM 3090 mainframe onto a strategic iSeries platform.

ESPO drives local government towards e-commerce efficiency (01/27/06)
Pioneering use of e-commerce extensions to Geac’s System 21 ERP software running on a model 520 iSeries is enabling Eastern Shires Purchasing Organisation (ESPO) to realise efficiencies for its local government customers.

Leeds United FC have their 'i' on the ball with 24 hour ticket line. (01/24/06)
Leeds United 3, Wigan Athletic 3, after extra time. Wigan won 4-2 on penalties. It was a nerve-wracking finale to a great game. With Leeds playing Wigan in the FA Cup 3rd round replay last week, the heat was on for the Elland Road ticket office.

IBM kicks off 2006 with full iSeries events agenda. (01/12/06)
IBM in the UK is starting off the new year by presenting an action-packed iSeries events agenda for 2006.

Speculation mounts as to V5R4 release date. (12/09/05)
Although IBM has been teasing out details of the next release of the iSeries’ i5/OS (née OS/400) operating system for some time, it is keeping its actual release date firmly under wraps as usual. However, speculation in iSeries-land is mounting that the release of V5R4 will happen sooner rather than later next year.

Raleigh, iSeries and mrc get a bicycle made for you (12/09/05)
Raleigh manufactures an instantly recognisable brand of bicycle and supplies over 2,000 dealers and outlets in the UK alone. There was a pressing need for a business-to-business (B2B) extranet site to be developed, piloted and live within six months. With help from London software house mrc (UK) Ltd, Raleigh was able to meet its tight deadlines and please its customers with the results.

Brewery says “cheers” to the iSeries in new win for Chorus (12/01/05)
St Austell Brewery, one of the largest employers in Cornwall, is an independent regional family brewer and one of Cornwall’s most successful and longest-established companies. In addition to brewing and distributing its own award-winning Cornish beers, St Austell operates an estate of 158 pubs and hotels in Cornwall and Devon. The company is also the South West’s leading wholesaler of lagers, beers, wines, spirits and soft drinks, supplying over 2,300 free trade businesses in the region. Over 1,000 people work for the brewery, which has an annual turnover of £70 million-plus. St Austell is now also a convert to iSeries, eschewing Windows NT and Unix.

WebSphere-based iSeries solution helps to fight identity theft (11/25/05)
A website recently launched by the St Andrew’s Group (a member company of banking group HBOS) allows customers to purchase a new insurance cover that protects the customer against identity theft. This move is further evidence, if it were needed, of the resilient application and popularity of iSeries in the financial sector.

Analyst figures confirm iSeries’ success and IBM’s position as server sales top dog (11/25/05)
Figures released by IT industry analysts today confirmed IBM as the market-leading seller of server hardware in terms of revenue and backed up its claim for revival of the iSeries’ fortunes.

Midrange Modernisation Tour’s European leg kicks off in December. (11/11/05)
Following a series of successful road shows mounted by the iSeries Network, the latest Midrange Modernisation Tour has started to roll. In the US, the first port of call was Irvine in California, with Dallas, Texas, next in line. And then European iSeries aficionados will get their chance to listen -- for free -- to some of the best independent advice on the market. This iSeries Network event begins in Milan on December 1 at ATA Hotel Executive and moves to the Runnymede Hotel in Egham, Surrey, on December 6.

UK iSeries unit follows worldwide growth pattern. (11/11/05)
The UK is contributing to the iSeries’ recently reported worldwide 25 per cent sales leap, according to the man who heads up the newly reorganised UK iSeries division.

COMMON UK to hold Winter Symposium in London. (10/27/05)
COMMON UK, the iSeries division of the IBM Computer Users’ Association (CUA) is to hold a Winter Symposium at London’s Thistle Marble Arch Hotel on December 1 and 2.

IBM clarifies upgrade and maintenance policies (10/20/05)
Frank Booty reports on IBM's efforts to persuade its customers to upgrade their systems.

Spacetec breaks the ice with new web enablement product (10/20/05)
Bedford-based SpaceTec, more commonly known for its document distribution and messaging tools, has branched out into the iSeries web enablement market with a new product called IceBreak.

The Fulfilment Store offers 24-hour online stock management (10/20/05)
Fulfilment and warehousing company The Fulfilment Store has launched an online service to let its customers manage their own stock efficiently, 24 hours a day, in real-time, with assistance from Computer Software Group’s TALENT Commerce software and iSeries.

Haines releases second podcast (10/20/05)
IBM iSeries propagandist Malcolm Haines and the platform’s chief architect Frank Soltis have released the second of their recently launched Podcastaways podcasts.

iSeries specialist wins national outsourcing award (10/06/05)
iSeries specialist Astech Consultants has won the Retail Outsourcing Project of the Year award for its work with the Thresher Group drinks chain.

Exclusive: Haines and Soltis team up for iSeries podcasts. (09/30/05)
Two of the iSeries world’s leading lights have teamed up for a series of podcasts that subtly extol the virtues of the iSeries IBM’s self-styled iSeries chief propagandist, Malcolm Haines, and Frank Soltis, the platform’s “godfather”, quietly launched a site called Podcastways earlier this month which has the avowed mission of “Destroying drudgery, banishing boredom and liberating businesses everywhere from the tyranny of technology.”

TRW Automotive opts for B/safe solution for SOX compliance. (09/30/05)
TRW Automotive choose Quattro Consultancy Services (recently promoted to Business Partner status by IBM) to implement its SOX (U.S. Government Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002) compliancy using the Bsafe/Global Security product.

WebSphere Portal promises SOA integration to new markets. (08/12/05)
IBM has released the latest version of WebSphere Portal which offers new features to further support customers’ efforts to build service oriented architectures (SOA). IBM is offering the product on iSeries plus the zSeries platform and the new System z9.

Budvar Beer retains a heavenly Aurora (08/04/05)
Bosses at the Czech beer company that brews the famous Budvar brew are hoping to beat the general downward trend in beer swilling, using their brand spanking new Geac System21 Aurora ERP system and a clutch of new iSeries boxes.

IBM report shows worrying trends in global IT security (08/04/05)
IBM’s Global Security Intelligence team and its partners had some good news for the IT industry this week. But it had a lot of bad news as well.

English and Irish CGIDEV2 users speak out on open source controversy (07/28/05)
The latest controversy in iSeries-land surrounds the future of the RPG-based web enablement tool CGIDEV2 and its associated IBM Easy400 website. So what do iSeries people in the UK and Eire make of all of this and what do they use CGIDEV2 for?

Scottish sheriffs boost performance with i5 (07/28/05)
How do you manage business growth for companies of a certain size while addressing the cost and complexity of the IT infrastructure? Answer: implement an i5 520 system, connected via an Integrated xSeries Adapter to an xSeries server running Microsoft Windows; deploy Backup Recovery and Media Services (BRMS) and install Hardware Management Console. What do you get? Benefits such as faster system response; the ability to share high-performance disks between different systems, so reducing the costs of storage provision; and a simplified, more cost-effective Windows application environment. Sounds too good to be true? Not for Scott & Company, the largest firm of sheriff officers and messengers-at-arms in Scotland.

Agility study to help firms utilise RFID technology. (07/20/05)
The iSeries is expected to feature strongly in the RFID world. Now, Agility Systems has launched an initiative to enable businesses and their customers to discover the benefits of RFID (radio frequency interactive device, or identification) technology. The Darlington-based firm has launched an RFID capability study to identify whether companies could benefit from utilising RFID. Agility experts will visit relevant companies, carry out an in-depth analysis of their existing practices and help them apply RIFD to their business models.

UK firm Databorough’s X-Analysis embraced by Big Blue and ISVs (07/07/05)
Some ten years ago, as IBM was about to introduce the first version of ILE, Mark Tregear, managing director of UK software house Databorough, was visiting Big Blue’s Toronto Labs to be met with the question: “How long will people be using legacy languages like RPG and COBOL?” Replied Tregear (with gusto): “Forever!”

Analyst advises Domino users on Lotus Workplace (07/07/05)
Workplace has caused some confusion for the Domino user community, who use their existing Lotus software do much the same things. Many iSeries-driven organisations are Notes/Domino users and have been left scratching their heads wondering where Domino ends and Workplace starts. Help is at hand from analyst firm Forrester Research which last week issued some advice on the subject.

Australian expansion points to globalised iSeries operations and strong Asia-Pacific growth (06/29/05)
Hampshire-based eveLogic, the largest independent distributor of Help System’s Robot suite of iSeries systems management tools, is opening up an office in Melbourne, Australia, in July. The move highlights a number of key developments in the worldwide iSeries ecosphere, in particular the globalising effect of logical partitioning and the increasing popularity of the iSeries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Sandvik Mining and Construction opts for Geac solution (06/29/05)
An integrated ERP and global service management software solution is to be provided for Sandvik Mining and Construction (SMC) by Geac, who will deliver an end-to-end information management solution that covers all SMC operations, from production through replacement parts and after-sales service. The project will integrate new global parts and service management functionality with SMC's current Geac System21 ERP system running on an iSeries model 825 (3/6-way Power4 processor).

IBM continues to stay ‘in touch’ with iSeries users (06/23/05)
Big Blue has added a number of new dates to its “In Touch” series of free one-day iSeries seminars in the UK that it kicked off in May.

Business partner programme thrives in first 90 days. (06/23/05)
It’s mid-June, time for strawberries and cream -- and for IBM to announce the early successes of its business partner programme targeted to help ISVs (independent software vendors) and tool partners develop software applications and tools for iSeries.

SPL winners Rangers join the iSeries’ champions league (06/08/05)
Four winning football teams have a common thread of using Computer Software Group’s iSeries-based Talent Sport software to manage their ticketing, marketing, customer service and sales operations. Liverpool FC won this season’s European Champion's League, Chelsea FC the Premiership, Sunderland FC the Championship, and Rangers FC the Scottish Premier League.

RFID use set to treble by 2010 (06/08/05)
One of the hottest issues in the iSeries space at the moment is radio frequency identification (RFID) and, according to analyst Datamonitor, the use of the technology is set to explode over the next five years.

Security concerns hamper push for BASCSTEL-IP on iSeries (06/01/05)
BACS and the banks are uncomfortable with the number of users still to upgrade to BACSTEL-IP.

French mortgage firm goes for huge consolidation project on iSeries (06/01/05)
As an example of the kind of consolidation capabilities that Big Blue likes to trumpet about the iSeries, French mortgage firm Crédit Immobilier de France’s (CIF) latest IT project is a great one.

iSeries at the hub of new interactive digital TV service. (05/25/05)
The iSeries has been selected as the key element of a new interactive digital TV service in Taiwan.

RBA introduces web-based project portfolio management. (05/25/05)
Hertfordshire-based RBA has launched PMweb, a web-based project portfolio management (PPM) software package featuring all the key functions required to support any concurrent projects through their life cycle in a multi-user environment.

RPG still alive and kicking say IBM and industry experts. (05/18/05)
RPG IV, the fourth generation of the RPG language, is the preferred choice for development on the iSeries platform. Over the last few years, IBM has continued to dramatically enhance RPG IV. Based on IBM's Developers Roadmap, RPG IV is a stepping stone and needs to coexist in developing applications in Java and WebSphere.

IBM and Red Hat take aim at Sun’s Solaris. (05/18/05)
IBM and Red Hat yesterday announced an aggressive programme to help firms migrate from Sun Microsystem’s Solaris Unix variant operating system to Linux running on Big Blue’s server range, including the iSeries.

Halcyon software helps Getronics manage growing iSeries “pay-as-you-go” business. (05/12/05)
Getronics has announced a new agreement with Peterborough-based Halcyon Software to bring further improvements to its shared service offering through use of Halcyon’s Data Centre Management Suite (DCMS). Halcyon’s DCMS will be used on all managed iSeries machines, including Getronics’ Shared Service built around an enterprise class iSeries Model 890, based in its National Data Centre in Runcorn, Cheshire.

IBM confirms job cuts in Europe. (05/11/05)
After mounting media speculation, including in last week’s iNEWSWire UK, IBM said last week that it was to cut between 10,000 and 13,000 staff worldwide.

UK firm rolls-out cross-Atlantic pervasive solution. (05/04/05)
Following successful trials at B/E Aerospace’s two UK sites at Leighton Buzzard near Luton and Kilkeel in Northern Ireland, Agility Systems has secured a contract to help B/E roll out its enterprise solution across seven sites in the US and Europe. Agility’s solution, which has been designed for the JD Edwards World ERP system, was first trialled in the UK and further developed at B/E Aerospace’s Winston Salem site in North Carolina. Now, the redeveloped solution will be utilised at the company’s US, Dutch and UK sites.

IBM to cut 15,000 jobs in Europe? (05/04/05)
IBM is keeping tight-lipped about mounting speculation in the press that it is poised to cut 15,000 jobs from its workforce in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA in IBM corporate parlance).

Manufacturing sector left cold by ‘on demand’ message. (04/27/05)
Manufacturing is one of the mainstays of the midrange iSeries market, but a new report says that the sector’s IT managers are left cold by the new technologies currently touted by the major vendors including IBM.

IBM talks up iSeries market and explains new i5 features (04/20/05)
IBM UK has been explaining some of the thinking behind some of the new iSeries features that Rochester announced last week and talking up its midrange business as a whole.

The White Company uses i5 to speed up forecasting (04/20/05)
The White Company - a luxury linen, domestic and lifestyle goods retailer –- is an example of a success story in the SME marketplace. Its products are available by mail order and from ten high street stores together with a concession in Selfridges, Birmingham. Hitherto an AS/400 user, The White Company has recently invested in an i5 solution from premier business partner Triangle. This has lead to an increase in efficiency and time savings, lending weight to the SME success story.

Events: IBM invites IT managers to get "in touch" with iSeries (04/13/05)
IBM UK is set to hold a programme of iSeries briefings throughout 2005. The first three of the "In Touch" seminars were announced this week, with dates set for April 28 at IBM Bedfont Lakes, May 12, again at IBM Bedfont Lakes, and June 16 at IBM Warwick.

Thresher Group smoothes out major iSeries outsourcing strategy (04/13/05)
With an historical strategy of outsourcing all of its business applications, hardware and related support services, Thresher Group sought an appropriate partner to provide support for its JDA retail packages, MMS and E3, running on iSeries.

Big Blue is top dog with WebSphere (04/13/05)
IBM has highlighted the latest Gartner 2004 market share report for 2004 for the application integration and middleware market. The report once again positioned IBM as the number one vendor across all application integration and middleware market share categories, which include application servers, integration suites, portals and application integration platforms.

UK firm’s system management software gets bundled with i5/OS (04/06/05)
UK iSeries systems management specialist CCSS has won something of a coup as its software will now be included with every new release of i5/OS on a “try and buy” basis.

SecureZIP data compression and encryption comes to the iSeries (04/06/05)
PKWARE has introduced releases of SecureZIP for iSeries/i5 and zSeries systems.

Microsoft-inspired AppEvo roadshow comes to London. (03/30/05)
ASNA has announced that its US AppEvo Roadshow will visit London on 7 June. AppEvo is an executive briefing that is intended to clear the air relating to IBM’s WebSphere on iSeries and provide answers to i5/iSeries modernisation questions. ASNA reckons making successful iSeries application development decisions is now quite a challenge. It is being widely claimed that IBM’s WebSphere/Java has not been a universal solution for RPG environments. There are now other strategic options in the marketing pool.

Rochester’s supercomputer sets new record. (03/30/05)
In November last year we reported the news that another product from the IBM Rochester Minnesota hotbed of innovation that is home to the iSeries, the BlueGene/L, had been confirmed as the world’s most powerful supercomputer. This week the US Department of Energy reported that BlueGene had beaten even this standard – and it is still only half built.

Legendary iSeries survives hurricane to keep paying out insurance claims. (03/23/05)
The iSeries has added yet another legendary tale of resilience to its collection, as details emerged yesterday (March 22) of a model surviving Hurricane Ivan and keeping up and running for the insurance company it serves.

Matthews Foods uses iSeries and Geac in plant-level integration. (03/23/05)
With a turnover of £42m, Matthews Foods plc is the UK's leading independent supplier of butters and spreads, producing branded and own label products for the retail, food service and prepared-food trades. It supplies all major retailers and also produces products such as the Pure (dairy-free spreads) and Filippo Berio Olive Spread brands. IT operations are based around an iSeries 720.

COMMON Europe heads to the Netherlands. (03/16/05)
This year’s COMMON Europe Congress will this year be held in Scheveningen, on the coast near to the Hague in the Netherlands, From June 5-7.

IBM UK speaks out on new push for iSeries innovation. (03/02/05)
An unprecedented investment has been unleashed by Big Blue in application innovation and sales enablement for ISVs and business partners to accelerate the availability of the iSeries/i5 application and tools portfolio.

SpaceTec cures health firm’s OfficeVision woes. (02/23/05)
When Baxter Healthcare started the project to update its iSeries to V5R2 it hit the problem faced by many companies – conversion of OfficeVision documents.

Sun claims superior price/performance to iSeries, but do the sums add up? (02/23/05)
According to Sun Microsystems, the latest benchmark tests published by the independent NotesBench Consortium show that its Sun Fire V890 server, based on the new processor, outperforms the Power5-driven iSeries for running Domino R6iNotes, delivering 16.5 per cent more users per processor. This, it claims, gives it “the best overall price/performance in the midrange class of servers”.

IBM targets ISVs in cross-platform push for Linux. (02/16/05)
Big Blue made another aggressive push in its ongoing campaign to promote Linux yesterday when it announced its new ‘Chiphopper’ campaign aimed at encouraging software developers to port their applications to Linux across its entire server line, including the iSeries.

Intentia wins with enterprise asset management on i5. (02/16/05)
Global enterprise solutions provider for companies involved in manufacturing, distribution and maintenance, Intentia recently released findings from its 2004 global EAM benchmarking survey. The results suggest inadequate maintenance strategies are resulting in unnecessary losses and missed profit opportunities for organisations.

PacSol views new future in GTOS. (02/09/05)
Two of the most well established and best known UK iSeries document management specialists, Pacific Solutions (PacSol) and GTOS, have joined forces.

UK iSeries users face looming BACS deadline. (02/02/05)
Companies across the UK are facing a deadline to migrate direct payment systems to BACSTEL-IP, the new delivery channel for submitting electronic payments to BACS (Bankers Automated Clearing Scheme) that replaces the existing BACSTEL service on 31 December 2005.

Flintshire County Council and REAL team up for AIX consolidation on i5. (02/02/05)
UK IBM premier partner REAL Solutions has completed the implementation of AIX 5.3 on the i5 for Flintshire County Council. IBM announced support for iSeries partitions running AIX in May last year and this is one of the world’s first examples of its pSeries-based flavour of Unix running under OS/400.

Survey: iSeries-based firms wasting £600,000 a year on testing. (01/26/05)
A new survey has found that most iSeries-driven companies are not comfortable with the quality or level of testing done on new and revised software prior to releasing it to users.

Automotive firm joins pan-European network with e-business initiative. (01/26/05)
E-business technology is transforming the way companies do business, with many companies operating a website or maintaining some web presence. Increasingly, UK manufacturers and distributors are realising the key benefits that can accrue by changing their website from being nothing more than a static corporate brochure presence into a dynamic trading tool.

Event queue -- Big Blue focuses on iSeries security. (01/26/05)
Due to Sarbanes-Oxley legislation IBM UK says that iSeries managers who work for U.S. multinationals or their subsidiaries will find its upcoming session on security of particular interest.

IBM releases latest results, iSeries decline slows. (01/19/05)
IBM released its fourth quarter figures today and the iSeries seems to have at least slowed its decline in 2004. Despite earlier rumours to the contrary, iSeries sales slipped only 9 per cent compared to the same period in 2003 according to a Reuters report earlier today (01/19).

Microsoft’s Midrange Alliance targets the iSeries. (01/12/05)
Following hot on the heels of last December’s assurances from IBM about renewing its focus on strengthening messages about iSeries applications comes news about the Midrange Alliance iSeries Roadmap – now being revealed in a Microsoft/ASNA roadshow touring the US and set to hit Europe (UK, Italy, Spain) in June this year with the same format.

Special iSeries Symposium offer for our readers. (01/12/05)
Common UK, the midrange division if the IBM Computer Users' Association, is offering readers of iSeries NEWS UK a special deal on the delegate fee for February’s iSeries Symposium.

IBM promises greater help for iSeries ISVs and more marketing in 2005. (12/15/04)
Big Blue plans a greater marketing push on i5 through its ISVs in 2005.

Not so festive fun for network managers. (12/15/04)
‘Tis the season to be jolly unless, that is, you are a network manager. New research shows that dramatic increases in traffic are overloading company internet infrastructures, impacting the critical Christmas sales period. 86 per cent of global companies had seen a growth in traffic over the last year, with the majority of this linked to greater website usage.

LPAR and WebSphere skills in high demand. (12/09/04)
WebSphere and logical partitioning (LPAR) are fuelling demand for training says the man behind IBM’s iSeries education courses in the UK.

Top children’s charity opts for high availability. (12/09/04)
Leading charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children – the NSPCC – specialises in the protection and prevention of cruelty to children, helping over 10,000 children and their families each year as well as providing a free 24-hour help line, public education campaigns, parliamentary campaigns, training, research and fundraising. The NSPCC is also a keen iSeries user.

IBM leads Western European server market, but iSeries sales slip. (12/01/04)
IBM retained its position as the number one seller of servers in Western Europe in the third quarter of this year, but the iSeries fared badly, says analyst IDC.

Deltron cuts lead times, saves inventory and strips out costs. (12/01/04)
One question inspired an entire project at British-based, pan-European manufacturer of electro-mechanical products Deltron-Emcon: “If it takes just half a day to manufacture the product, yet takes up to a month to deliver to the customer, how much wasted time exists in the manufacturing process and supply chain?”

Isle Of Wight firm launches new GUI tool and automated RFID/data collection suite. (11/24/04)
Isle of Wight-based Cemoc Ltd, which specialises in the implementation, customisation and support of systems and network management software, has embarked on a GUI and RFID/data collection strategy taking in AS/400 and iSeries manufacturing users.

Oracle nears success in bid to buy PeopleSoft; iSeries users not impressed. (11/24/04)
Oracle’s bid to take over rival ERP vendor PeopleSoft, with its significant iSeries customer base, looked nearer to success last week when a majority of PeopleSoft shareholders tendered their shares to Oracle in response to its final $24 per share offer. However, the PeopleSoft board continues to resist the hostile takeover.

iSeries NEWS UK author launches technical forums. (11/24/04)
Flintshire-based iSeries and Linux specialist Chilli-IT has relaunched its website to include six iSeries-related technical forums. The company believes that the service will be invaluable to iSeries customers who need extra support or advice.

Firwood paints the town red in push for e-business. (11/17/04)
Bolton-based industrial paint and coatings manufacturer Firwood Paints Ltd is implementing IBM’s WebSphere Commerce solution. The site is to be designed and developed by iSeries and web integration specialist CSI.

Common UK heads for Bristol, issues call for papers. (11/17/04)
iSeries user group Common UK is heading to beautiful Bristol for its annual technical conference next year. The 2005 event will be held at the Thistle Hotel over the 23rd and 24th of February. As befits the biggest iSeries event in the UK, the platform’s chief architect, Frank Soltis has already been confirmed as the keynote speaker.

Reading FC and London Irish Rugby FC keep ahead of the game. (11/10/04)
Smartcard technology built around iSeries expertise is revolutionising football and rugby experiences for fans and clubs alike. There’s tighter security, faster stadium entry times, build up of customer knowledge, revenue generation and elimination of ticket fraud. It’s all starting to happen for Reading FC and London Irish Rugby FC who are set to use Europe’s first paper smart tickets.

Blue Gene supercomputer joins IBM’s eServer family. (11/10/04)
It’s not just the wonderful iSeries that comes out of IBM Rochester. The clever folks at the Minnesota hotbed of technical innovation are also responsible for the BlueGene/L supercomputer, which has been confirmed as the world's most powerful at this week’s Supercomputing 2004 trade show in Pittsburgh.

Telecoms firm evolves service with new i5 hardware and CUoD. (11/03/04)
Martin Dawes Systems (MDS) is evolving with POWER5 CUoD (Capacity Upgrade on Demand) technologies in what is believed to be the first UK live implementation of Rochester’s latest eServer technologies.

User group to hold iSeries development laboratory day. (11/03/04)
iSeries user group, COMMON UK, has announced the details of its forthcoming 2004 IBM Rochester Roadshow event, which will take place at IBM’s Bedfont Lakes site on Wednesday, December 1.

European Commission gives PeopleSoft takeover bid the green light (10/27/04)
The long-running battle by Oracle to acquire PeopleSoft and its significant iSeries customer base appears to be nearing its end game after the European Commission said yesterday that it would not block the takeover.

Welsh firm brings iSeries into the movie rental market (10/27/04)
The iSeries can now add another notch to its application portfolio - renting videos and DVDs. iSeries specialist XKS of St Asaph in North Wales has commenced a managed service contract with the Co-operative Group to support and host its Movie Nights software application, which is used to run the retailer's video and DVD rental business (also called Movie Nights).

Vendors offer advice on BPM for iSeries users. (10/20/04)
Business performance management (BPM) software provides “the perfect platform for the (long overdue) marriage of business strategists and IT managers,” according to Martin Richmond-Coggan, MD of BPM and business intelligence software company Applix (UK) Ltd. Among many attributes, BPM enables multiple users to glean answers to many performance questions from a single data store.

Report: midsize market offers best opportunities for IT vendors in Europe. (10/20/04)
Despite a set of dismal figures for iSeries released on Monday by Big Blue -- down 26 per cent compared to the third quarter last year -- it’s all there to play for in the platform’s traditional midrange market, according to a new report.

Consolidate now with Syan, plus IBM, Lakeview and IDC. (10/13/04)
Vroom, vroom. It’s a combo of iSeries, i5, server consolidation, High Availability, xSeries, AIX, Linux and fast cars. Add a dash of Big Blue and Lakeview, and you’ve got a recipe for a great day out.

Original Software unveils Testbench V4.0 (10/06/04)
The first US user conference for Original Software in Chicago was selected as the launch pad for version 4.0 of its automated testing solution TestBENCH for iSeries. The software, which was developed in the UK, is packed with new features such as Stress Testing, Results Compare and Date Warping.

It’s the right one, it’s the bright one -- it’s Pertini. (09/22/04)
Manchester-based iSeries specialist Byford Computer Services has leapt aboard the pervasive bandwagon with Pertini -- an interactive cocktail which involves mixing Byford’s proven expertise in barcode scanning with IBM middleware.

Event queue: Star-studded line-up at Cannes, Premier shows off partner’s wares. (09/22/04)
If you are an iSeries customer, Business Partner, independent software vendor or IBM staffer and you’ve got 1,837.07 euros to spare, Cannes is the place to be from 11-14 October for Big Blue’s iSeries Technical Conference.

UK firm’s ultra density optical media technology goes native with iSeries. (09/15/04)
Break out the ice cream, brew your best coffee and serve that chocolate cake. Ultra density optical (UDO) technology is now available on iSeries (and i5, of course). Data archival solution specialist Plasmon (a British company, no less, with its global headquarters in Cambridge, and manufacturing operations in Colorado, US, and Cork, Ireland) has announced that i5/OS provides native support for 30GB UDO technology in its G-Series for IBM OS/400 optical libraries.

IBM launches financing promotion on iSeries, pSeries and other selected products. (09/15/04)
IBM’s Global Financing unit last week announced the launch of a new promotion, 'Why wait', which features payment options on all current i5 and iSeries models.

Event queue: CUA serves up a Linux special. (09/15/04)
In the week that Big Blue launched the iSeries’ new Linux-only little brother, the OpenPower server, the IBM Computer Users association has released details of a special Linux day on 12 October.

Who’s buying the i5? (09/08/04)
Now the marketing dust has settled and i5 is with us, is anyone actually buying it? Steve Way, Common UK director, says: “There are no concrete figures to hand, but there has been a lot of interest expressed in i5, particularly the 570s. But whether this interest has been translated into sales is unknown.”

IBM comes out on top in improving Western European server market. (09/01/04)
IBM pipped HP at the post to emerge as the leader in server sales in Western Europe in the second quarter of this year in terms of revenue, according to the latest set of figures from analyst IDC.

Event queue: IBM UK holds iSeries breakfast briefings. (09/01/04)
As the nation’s IT managers get back from their hols and start putting the summer behind them, the conference and seminar schedule gets underway once again. First up this week comes news of IBM UK’s CIO iSeries.mySeries breakfast briefings that commence on 14 September.

New i5 550 to be available by 10 September. (08/25/04)
With the key aim of assisting mid-sized businesses to match their IT purchases to their business needs, IBM is launching the one-to-four-way Power5 microprocessor-based eServer i5 550 to the market on 10 September 2004.

OS Solutions and MITL join forces for high availability. (08/25/04)
Two months after OS Solutions joined the increasingly competitive iSeries high availability software market, the Manchester-based company has joined forces with major iSeries vendor MITL.

SSA Global goes for ERP convergence strategy (08/18/04)
Frank Booty looks at where major iSeries ERP provider SSA GT is heading with the covergence of its large product portfolio.

EMEA region gets rebate for iSeries customers. (08/11/04)
Nigh on simultaneous with the recent details of Mike Borman’s appointment to head up iSeries operations and the 28 per cent drop off in iSeries sales in the latest quarterly results came news of an interesting cash rebate handout from IBM.

iSeries helps skateboarders customise their footwear. (08/11/04)
Here at Newswatch UK, we’re always looking for examples of cutting edge uses for the iSeries, so we were intrigued by the story of skatewear giant Vans use of the platform to allow customers to customise their own trainers as told by the Los Angeles Daily News on Sunday.

iTera aims its guns on the high-availability ‘big three’. (08/04/04)
A US iSeries high-availability (HA) firm is aiming to take an aggressive bite out of its competitors’ customer base in the UK. Salt Lake City-based iTera Inc is so confident about its flagship Echo 2 and associated solutions that is offering remote installation of its software.

CSI teams up with US giant to push EDI solutions. (08/04/04)
Leeds-based iSeries specialist CSI has entered a strategic partnership with Atlanta-based business commerce automation solutions provider Harbinger to resell Harbinger’s suite of data transformation and connectivity software and services.

CRM solution touches down with gridiron Jocks (07/28/04)
CSG’s Software4Sport division’s exclusively iSeries-based CRM solution, Talent Sport, has made major inroads into the football and rugby clubs of the nation in recent years, but now it has been adopted by an American football team – in Scotland!

iSeries and the RFID equation. (07/21/04)
What role is the iSeries set to play in RFID? Indeed, does it have a role at all? Well, so far the omens look good.

IBM invites iSeries faithful to Cannes conference. (07/21/04)
For those of you that missed last month’s Common Europe Conference in Cardiff, Big Blue is inviting specialists to its eServer iSeries Technical Conference for Power5 and i5/OS in Cannes, 11-14 October.

Telecomm specialist forges ahead with the iSeries. (06/30/04)
Next time you use your mobile phone, the details of your call could well be logged into an iSeries, as a Warrington-based firm is forging ahead in the telecomms market with its billing software based on the platform.

Poultry producer hatches home-grown ERP solution. (06/30/04)
A leading UK poultry producer has improved its financial data flow and solved a few headaches using Lansa’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Framework, one of the main planks of Lansa’s Codestart Programme.

Anglo-Dutch firm tunes up iSeries on no cure, no fee basis. (06/23/04)
A new kid on the block is showing the grown ups how it’s done, iNEWSWire UK has recently discovered. Started up only in July last year, Tuning Group is already reaching the parts that stronger remedies cannot and has won IBM’s platinum award for best newcomer only months after setting up shop.

Security firm launches iSeries firewall solution in UK. (06/16/04)
Finnish security specialist Stonesoft launched what it is billing as the first internal firewall and VPN solution for the iSeries, StoneGate, in the UK last week. StoneGate will initially be distributed by Surrey-based Platinum Blue.

Feedback points to an anti EU patent stance amongst UK iSeries developers. (06/09/04)
A couple of weeks ago we featured a story about the impending threat of the EU-wide software patent law that could have serious implications for both commercial and in-house software developers. Although my investigations found that many within the iSeries industry in the UK have yet to wake up to the ramifications of the legislation, the article provoked some vociferous feedback from a number of readers.

UK iSeries outsourcing still growing, albeit more slowly, say vendors. (06/09/04)
There’s a mixed message coming from the UK iSeries outsourcing camp it seems, as Fenella Quinn looks behind some recent announcements.

i5 model 520 beats Sun and HP at running SAP software. (06/09/04)
IBM says that its new Power5-based i5 model 520 has achieved a record benchmark result for running a two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) application on a 2-way system.

Good start to year for server market in Europe, mixed message on iSeries. (06/02/04)
According to analyst IDC’s regular European Server Tracker report, the Western European server market made a promising start to 2004, recording 7.7% year-on-year growth in current dollar terms in the first quarter, on the heels of two consecutive quarters marked by positive growth. However, the figures for the iSeries present a mixed message.

EU patent laws could harm programmers and “dance on grave” of open source. (05/26/04)
The latest moves by the European Council to introduce software patent legislation across the EU could have grave consequences for independent software vendors, as well as in-house developers, say iSeries industry commentators.

Report: demand for servers in UK on the increase. (05/26/04)
The halcyon days of the early adopter may be with us again and IBM’s new i5 servers should be gloriously in demand, if the latest report to come out of IDC is to be believed.

Northern iSeries User Group gears up for June conference. (05/26/04)
The Northern iSeries User Group (NiSug) is offering its alternative to COMMON UK users group next month at a fraction of the price.

New i5 prices clarified; vote on them in our poll (05/19/04)
Whenever Big Blue makes such an announcement it generally provides prices in US dollars and there is often a time lag before the prices in other currencies becomes available, but this week we can set the record straight and provide you with a fairly comprehensive list of what to expect when it comes to pounds sterling.

UK firm aims to enter the HA fray. (05/19/04)
In the same week that high availability heavy hitters DataMirror called it quits in its long running battle to take over rival Vision Solutions, a UK firm is preparing to enter the iSeries HA fray.

Positive reactions to new iSeries announcements from UK users and suppliers. (05/05/04)
Early reactions from UK users and suppliers to IBM's new iSeries announcements have been generally positive, although the new i5 name has raised a few eyebrows in some quarters.

New firm aims to solve iSeries dilemmas. (05/05/04)
A new North West company aims to cure technical headaches for UK iSeries users and advise them how to get the best out of their trusty midrange machines.

Common Europe Conference special offer for our readers. (04/28/04)
Regular readers will already know that this year’s biggest European iSeries event, the Common Europe Conference, will be held at Cardiff’s International Arena and will run from June 20-22. We’ve been alluding to it for some time, but now we can reveal the details of a special offer on the event’s attendance fee for readers of iNEWSWire UK and iSeries NEWS UK magazine.

IBM’s iSeries price cuts clarified. (04/28/04)
Last week, I reported that IBM had cut the costs of the present generation of iSeries and many of its associated peripherals. However, at the time IBM had only published dollar prices, so I promised that this week I would see if I could get some sterling prices to make the picture clearer.

IBM cuts prices on current iSeries range. (04/21/04)
IBM has come up with a solution to shifting its present-generation iSeries models by cutting their prices.

LANSA helps medical firm collaborate with customers and supply chain. (04/21/04)
LANSA is helping a global medical technology push at the frontiers of science and knowledge sharing – and all through the iSeries.

Events: Byford holds major technology briefing plus VMWare seminar. (04/21/04)
Byford is holding a free half-day seminar on VMWare on Wednesday 5 May at the Carrington Business Park Conference Centre, near Manchester, which includes a buffet lunch. The company is is also holding a major technology briefing at the impressive new home of Manchester City on May 13th

BI specialist and fraud-buster team up to fight crime. (04/14/04)
Business intelligence specialist Datawatch Europe has got together with Sussex-based Cobasco Group, specialist in fraud prevention, detection, investigation and recovery, to seek out and destroy fraud and other criminal activities within its customer base.

CSG to buy JOBS creator JBS. (04/07/04)
Ever expanding iSeries application specialist Computer Software Group (CSG) got even bigger last week when it announced that it was to buy JBS Computer Services, the West Bromwich-based provider of iSeries distribution, manufacturing, accounting and web development solutions.

Geac’s Aurora “hits the ground running”. (04/07/04)
Those in the know at Geac Enterprise Solutions told iNEWSWire UK this week that its revamped, Java'd up version of old iSeries ERP favourite, System 21, is going great guns.

IDC points to growth in IT investment, but notes caution over iSeries. (03/31/04)
After a long period of infrastructure consolidation and focus on getting value from existing systems, European organisations are now looking at where investment in new systems can bring benefits to their business, says IDC.

IBM launches new Siteview for iSeries remote monitoring service. (03/31/04)
IBM announced a new Siteview for iSeries service in the UK this week which aims to offer customers a cost-effective method to monitor their iSeries environment for critical changes.

Events: V5R3 Skillbuilder dates and CIO-level consolidation seminar. (03/31/04)
IBM is still keeping the announcement dates of the next generation of OS/400 and new iSeries hardware line-up a closely guarded secret. However, the announcements should come before May 13 and REAL Solutions will be hosting the V5R3 IBM iSeries SkillBuilder updates on that date and May 18 at its solutions centres in Altrincham and Chessington.

SoftLanding tempts with cheap portal technology (03/24/04)
SoftLanding Europe announced a new offer last week designed to tempt iSeries customers towards the idea of portal technology. As sole UK and Ireland distributors of BCD software, SoftLanding is selling BCD’s top three solutions, WebSmart, Nexus, and Catapult in an integrated package called “BCD’s iSeries Web Deployment Bundle”. Even better, the bundle is being sold at 50 per cent off the individual product prices when bundled, which equates to a price ranging from £8,000 to £16,000.

iSeries and AIMS powers Irish radio station RTÉ. (03/17/04)
RTÉ, the state-owned TV and radio broadcaster for Ireland, has plumped for the iSeries together with AIMS, the Airtime Inventory Management System developed by Templa Computer Systems, to run the advertising scheduling on its various radio stations throughout Eire.

One-to-one meetings with IBM’s top brass to be held at conference. (03/17/04)
The agenda for the Common Europe Conference has been unveiled at the iSeries user group’s website, http://www.comeur.org. The conference promises to be the biggest iSeries event this side of the Atlantic this year and takes place between 19-22 June in Cardiff.

Improved server market and iSeries sales, plus increased confidence for European IT managers, say reports (03/10/04)
According to analyst IDC's European Server Tracker survey, results for 4Q03 marked the second consecutive quarter of revenue growth in the server market and an impressive 37.4% year-on-year growth for combined OS/390 and OS/400 factory revenue. Revenue for the iSeries on its own in 4Q03 was up 22.13% at $305.1 million, compared to $249.8 million in the same period last year

T-Cut maker the first to buy new HA model. (03/10/04)
Home and car care company, Tetrosyl, has become the first company in the UK to take up IBM’s recent high availability offer on the very day it was announced, placing an order with Byford on February 27th.

SCO sues first Linux user and wins licence deal, but gets wings clipped in Germany. (03/03/04)
After many months of threats, SCO today revealed that its first end-user Linux victim in the courts will be Memphis-based Fortune 500 auto parts chain AutoZone.

Big Blue aims to boost HA take-up with new model iSeries. (03/03/04)
IBM hopes to bring in 50 per cent of its iSeries customer base with a new high availability offering that gives customers a second machine for a cut price. First introduced in September last year on a larger, 825 model, the cheaper high availability machine is now available on the 810 and is aimed at a broader base of users than previously.

Euro techies the first to see V5R3? (02/25/04)
Big iSeries product announcements often coincide with the large COMMON user group events in the States and the next one is scheduled for May 2-6 in San Antonio, Texas. But, before that, IBM is holding the ITSO iSeries V5R3 Technical Forum in Barcelona, April 26-30.

Liverpool FC moves to iSeries-based entry system. (02/25/04)
Liverpool FC club revealed plans this week to implement a smart card access system to its ground, joining pioneers Manchester City FC in its move to completely ticketless entry to every football match. The club made its announcement as it revealed its imminent implementation of Software4Sport’s TALENT Sport, an iSeries-based ticketing and CRM software system designed specifically for sports clubs.

IT departments are failing to explain web services. (02/25/04)
A survey published last week says that 36% of the UK's IT professionals believe that their business colleagues are totally in the dark when it comes to understanding web services, claiming that they “don't know what they are” and perceive the technology as “unimportant”.

IBM cuts upgrade and Capacity-on-Demand prices, launches new entry-level models in Italy. (02/18/04)
IBM cut prices for iSeries upgrades in EMEA last week (Feb 10) at the higher end of the range, slashed the prices of Capacity-on-Demand and introduced three new low-price model 800s that will be trialled exclusively in Italy.

iSeries helps keep young people on the straight and narrow. (02/18/04)
A York-based iSeries specialist is helping the government improve life for thousands of young adults all over the country.

Report: mid-market enterprises to drive European IT growth. (02/18/04)
IDC’s latest forecasts for Western European IT spending in the small and midsize business (SMB) space show that IT spending will continue to be stronger in the mid-market, traditionally the mainstay of the iSeries, than in small and large enterprises. In 2004, SMBs (1-499 employees) will account for more than half of total IT spending in Western Europe.

Dept. of Justice staff say Oracle bid should be blocked. (02/11/04)
Oracle’s hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft, which now owns a large iSeries user base after its own consensual takeover of JD Edwards, appeared to suffer another blow yesterday (Feb 10) after staff of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice recommended that Oracle’s move be blocked.

Giftware firm bypasses RPG. (02/11/04)
Since way before the advent of lorries and computers, manufacturers have always had to cope with the headache of getting the right goods to the right people. Giftware and collectables manufacturer Enesco has addressed this very issue by bringing in the very latest in technology languages, in the shape of LANSA.

‘Father of iSeries’ to speak at Common Europe Conference. (02/04/04)
The ‘father of the iSeries, Frank Soltis, has been confirmed as a keynote speaker at this year’s Common Europe Conference which will be held in Cardiff from June 19 to 22.

UK developer prices software for on demand era. (02/04/04)
International Presence has doffed its hat to IBM’s global drive towards ‘on demand’ technology with the release of version 3 of Presence, its business process and application integration system.

IBM appoints first autonomic computing partner. (02/04/04)
Big Blue this week made systems management and automation software developers Tango/04 Computing Group the first iSeries-focused company to be selected as an IBM autonomic computing business partner.

Life IT aims guns on Microsoft with Linux. (01/28/04)
Manchester-based iSeries specialist Life IT has become an “Advanced Business Partner” of SuSE Linux and has Microsoft firmly in its sights.

Early warning system boosts Early Learning Centre. (01/28/04)
Well-known to every parent of small children, Early Learning Centre (ELC) is one of the UK’s leading toy shops, selling pre-school play equipment and toys through high street stores, franchises, mail order and a slick web operation. In order to keep all these sales opportunities running smoothly, the company needed to streamline and sharpen up its IT activities, which it has done with an IT systems management solution from Halcyon Software.

Public sector drove 49 per cent outsourcing increase in 2003. (01/22/04)
New research from market analyst Datamonitor published today has found that businesses across the world dramatically increased their investment in major IT and business process outsourcing initiatives in 2003.

Novell offers legal indemnification for SuSE Linux users. (01/14/04)
Novell yesterday (Jan 13) completed its $210 million takeover of SuSE Linux, paving the way for a $50 million dollar investment into the new combined company by IBM. At the same time, Novell aggressively threw its weight behind IBM and rest of the Linux community’s legal battle with SCO over the ownership rights to Linux itself by offering a new indemnification program for its SuSE Linux Enterprise Server customers.

CSG adds another string to its bow. (01/14/04)
Computer Software Group plc (CSG), formerly Software For Sport, has bought Leeds-based iSeries specialist Springstone Software Services Ltd for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition follows two earlier iSeries business buys made by the CSG, that of Wizz400 last January and Chorus Application Software Limited in June 2003.

iSeries NEWS UK writer in new role. (01/14/04)
Regular iSeries NEWS UK magazine contributor Glenn Robinson has been appointed as the new technical director of Manchester-based IBM business partner, Life IT.

System 21 users go for CSG solutions (12/10/03)
Computer Software Group is enjoying popularity in the System 21 market as the first two customers take up its new integrated e-commerce offering.

Survey: one in four medium sized UK firms use Linux. (12/10/03)
An independent survey conducted by research company Vanson Bourne for IBM amongst UK IT managers shows that 26 per cent, or one in four, SMB respondents currently use Linux.

IBM software division faces radical restructuring (12/03/03)
Stories in the IT press this week have led many IBM watchers to believe that Big Blue is gearing up for a fundamental shift in the way it sells its software.

IBM makes portal technology as easy as one...two...iSeries. (11/26/03)
From December 4 iSeries users will be able to buy portal technology that will not only link up all their disparate systems, but also be a piece of cake to implement by themselves, according to IBM. Portal technology has been around for a while, but the WebSphere Portal-Express has so far only been available on NT for a couple of months.

Common Europe gears up for Cardiff in ’04. (11/19/03)
Common Europe, the umbrella organisation of national IBM user associations, is gearing up already for next year's big iSeries bun fight, and is now calling for papers.

New Power blade server points to future of iSeries. (11/19/03)
In a move that will almost certainly affect future iSeries development, IBM yesterday (November 18) unveiled the JS20, the industry's first blade server based on 64-bit Power architecture.

iSeries mops up HP3000 customers and ISVs. (11/12/03)
With the news last week that HP has finally pulled the e3000 from the market, with support to cease in 2006, it turns out IBM has been very busy quietly lining up a clutch of unhappy HP customers who are ready for divorce and looking to make a healthy new alliance.

US school’s purchase of model i820 is questioned. (11/12/03)
The story of how a Florida elementary school with just 670 students ended up buying a brand new iSeries model i820 emerged last week in the States after suspicious reporters and auditors questioned the purchase.

Novell to buy iSeries Linux pioneer SuSE, IBM joins the party. (11/05/03)
Novell announced yesterday (November 4) that it is to buy SuSE Linux in an amicable $210 cash deal. At the same time, IBM announced that it is to make a $50 investment into Novell.

Rugby League champions have TALENT (11/05/03)
Rugby League double winners, the Bradford Bulls, are the latest in an increasingly long line of sport clubs to plump for Software4Sport’s TALENT ticketing and CRM solution.

Warren’s watchwords: Let’s get real! (10/29/03)
Fenella Quinn interviews Warren Bernstein, the new VP systems group manager for iSeries in EMEA in the week that the iSeries arguably celebrates its 25th anniversary -- if you count the System 38, that is.

Co-development heralds birth of new iSeries EPOS system. (10/29/03)
Welsh iSeries specialist XKS has helped Home Bargains, a North West-based retailer owned by TJ Morris, to develop an EPOS system that links directly into each of the iSeries in its 92 stores.

IBM launches Green Streak II. (10/22/03)
IBM today (October 22) launched a new discount deal for iSeries users, Green Streak II, a reprise of the campaign it had some success with last Autumn.

IBM software supremo praises iSeries. (10/22/03)
In an interview with Computerworld, Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive at IBM and the man responsible for driving Big Blue's software division, sung the iSeries' praises.

Event queue: LANSA talks about Synon and supply chain issues. (10/22/03)
LANSA is holding a morning Synon workshop on Thursday November 6 at its St Albans HQ. It is also holding a free retail and supply chain seminar at IBM Warwick on Tuesday, November 11.

Man City fans get smart. (10/15/03)
Manchester City Football Club has introduced Europe's first ever completely ticketless access system, whereby every fan entering the ground's 90 turnstiles, be it season ticket holder or guest, must gain entry via radio wave-emitting smart cards that link directly to the club’s iSeries CRM system.

Resellers speak out on refurb kit. (10/15/03)
iSeries resellers seem to differ in their opinions on the second user market, which iNEWSWire UK put in the spotlight a few weeks ago.

IBM takes consolidation message on the road (10/08/03)
IBM is getting down to the coal face with a whole series of events over the next fortnight designed to persuade customers of the benefits of moving Intel and Linux workloads together on to their iSeries servers, and utilising unused processing capacity.

Oracle eyes Linux on iSeries. (10/08/03)
On September 10, and with no fanfare, a notice quietly appeared on Oracle’s website that reveals plans for its Oracle 9i database and Linux on iSeries.

UK iSeries developer renames. (10/08/03)
York-based iSeries e-business specialist e-400 has changed its name to MERISIS as part of a company restructuring.

Last call for iSeries event of the year -- save £100. (10/01/03)
There are two weeks to go until the biggest UK iSeries event, the "Seeing eye to iSeries" COMMON UK Autumn Symposium at the Royal Court Hotel, Coventry, 15-16 October. You don’t have to be a member of the UK’s biggest iSeries user group to attend; as a reader of iNEWSWire UK you are eligible for a whopping £100 discount on the non-member delegate fee.

Office equipment supplier shelters under Computer Software Group’s new umbrella. (10/01/03)
Computer Software Group’s (CSG) new acquisitions, Wizz400 and Chorus ERP, have got it together under their new ownership to get a major computer consumables company trading online with up-to-the-minute XML technology.

IBM adds increased output management functions to Infoprint Server for iSeries. (10/01/03)
IBM has added new functions to its Infoprint Server software to provide iSeries users with the ability to reorganise document distribution processes.

Second user iSeries sales seem like a secret. (09/24/03)
Although the iSeries often appears to be Big Blue's best kept secret, second hand sales of its midrange servers can seem to be even more so, yet there are good deals to be had by exploring this market.

Microsoft marches up the ERP rankings. (09/24/03)
When Microsoft last year gobbled up ERP developers Navision and Great Plains, most analysts saw the acquisitions as the Redmond giant's push into the big boys' enterprise software league and one that would enable it to take on everyone from SSA and SAP and what were then J.D. Edwards and Baan. So, is the strategy working?

SCO seeks dismissal of Red Hat case. (09/17/03)
The SCO versus IBM and the open source community row rumbled on this week as SCO sought to have the lawsuit launched against it by Red Hat dismissed in Delaware District Court on Monday.

Parker Hannifin slashes billing costs with Create!Form. (09/17/03)
iSeries-based documentation specialist Create!Form has bagged a shining prize with the contract to put its software into worldwide manufacturer Parker Hannifin Corporation’s offices across 27 countries.

IBM ships new iSeries models for high availability and disaster recovery. (09/10/03)
Big Blue fully unveiled the specially configured model i825, i870 or i890 iSeries for Capacity Backup and iSeries for High Availability servers last Friday (September 5) in time for the COMMON user group conference in Orlando.

British IT directors the most concerned about terrorism in EMEA (09/10/03)
Two years on from the World Trade Centre catastrophe, it seems the British are the most paranoid in EMEA about the threat of a terrorist attack bringing their businesses to an abrupt halt. Compared to the Germans and the French, UK IT directors are nearly three times more likely to be concerned about the threat of terrorism crippling their systems.

The great Nexus portal giveaway. (09/10/03)
Thinking about finally getting your iSeries truly web enabled? Good fortune falls in your lap this week as Chicago-based Business Computer Design Int'l, Inc. (BCD) announces its free iSeries web portal to the first 1,000 comers.

Time to get real about power cuts. (09/03/03)
In the wake of last Thursday’s total power failure in London and the south east, which followed closely on the heels of America’s worst ever power failure that shut down the continent from Toronto to New York, UK companies should finally be waking up to the idea that it could well happen to them, at any minute.

IBM’s grid computing gets closer at US Open. (09/03/03)
As part of its grid computing push, IBM this week introduced a new product, Tivoli Intelligent Orchestrator; software that lets groups of servers automatically add computing power to jobs that need it or subtract it when demand dies down.

iSeries job prospects bleak, say industry insiders. (08/27/03)
It hardly needs saying – times are tough for your average iSeries-based employee, and the figures prove it. According to Jobstats.co.uk, UK demand for iSeries skills has dropped from 240 openings in March 2001 to 40 in August 2003. And word has it that a pretty standard central London-based RPG programming job posted recently on Jobserve.co.uk generated 90 applicants in just two hours.

Geac keeps the iSeries flag flying with hosting and maintenance contracts. (08/27/03)
iSeries stalwart Geac is soldering on gamely with two nicely priced support and maintenance contracts awarded this month.

Event queue: ASNA shows off AVR for .NET at Manchester seminar. (08/27/03)
ASNA has brought out AVR for .NET, which further marries RPG skills with the Microsoft environment and it is keen to tell the world about it. So much so, in fact, that it is holding a holding a free one-day technical seminar at the Crowne Plaza, Manchester, on Monday October 13, hosted by Tim Jannsen, an industry expert.

IBM previews iSeries “Squadron” chip. (08/20/03)
IBM has been talking up its “Squadron” Power5 processors this week at the annual Hot Chips Symposium, held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. The Power5 processors will debut in both the iSeries and its Unix cousin the pSeries next year and IBM was keen to talk about the simultaneous multi-threading technology (SMT) that will feature on the new chips.

Major manufacturer chooses CCSS solutions to manage its i890. (08/20/03)
Newell Rubbermaid Inc, a global manufacturer of famous household brands like Paper Mate, Parker, Rotering and Pyrex, has implemented the entire iSeries systems management suite from CCSS -- QSystem Monitor, QMessage Monitor and QRemote Control -- to help it manage its heavyweight model i890 at its European data centre in Sunderland.

Frank Soltis to host round table at COMMON UK Symposium. (08/20/03)
Last week, we told you about the "Seeing eye to iSeries" COMMON UK/CUA Autumn Symposium at the Royal Court Hotel, Coventry, 15-16 October. This week it has emerged that a number of lucky delegates will be able to get up close and personal with the “father of the iSeries”, Frank Soltis, at a specially convened round table discussion.

Save £100 at the COMMON UK Autumn Symposium with iNEWSWire UK (08/13/03)
The UK iSeries community is already gearing up for what is now its biggest event of the year, the "Seeing eye to iSeries" COMMON UK Autumn Symposium at the Royal Court Hotel, Coventry, 15-16 October. But if you are not a member of COMMON UK, the UK’s biggest iSeries user group, or its parent organisation, the IBM Computer Users Association (CUA), don’t worry; as a reader of iNEWSWire UK you are eligible for a whopping £100 discount on the non-member delegate fee.

Byford’s prescription cures Superdrug headache. (08/13/03)
Byford Computer Services has brought high street pharmaceutical company Superdrug right into the 21st century by introducing a Jacada-based intranet to its 700 stores.

SCO claims first corporate scalp (08/13/03)
SCO has claimed that its attempts to force firms using Linux to pay it a licence fee has already claimed one Fortune 500 scalp.

iSeries chief dismisses SCO claim – Red Hat launches SCO counter strike. (08/06/03)
Last week, worldwide IBM iSeries supremo Al Zollar dismissed the IBM/SCO legal battle over Linux as ‘silly’ and on Monday (August 10) major Linux distributor Red Hat has making its own claim in court against SCO.

iSeries ERP developer hails ASP model for SMEs. (08/06/03)
If you thought the application service provider (ASP) debate had trotted off for the summer, you’d be wrong, as those great proponents of the remote model, JBS Computer Services, launch another offensive to persuade the market of the benefits of remote application management.

IDC report confirms big ROI on iSeries/Intel consolidation. (07/30/03)
IDC (International Data Corp) has confirmed that SMEs will gain huge cost savings by consolidating workloads on to the iSeries from Intel-architecture servers running Microsoft Windows and Linux workloads. According to the report, sponsored by IBM, customers who have consolidated on to iSeries machines have reduced combined server downtime by more than 90% in the first year, and will reduce costs by more than 50% over a three-year period by cutting down on staffing, maintenance and training expenses.

Renamed UK iSeries specialist goes it alone after management buyout. (07/30/03)
Major UK iSeries reseller and services firm DCS eIntegration has been renamed Computer Systems Integration Ltd (to be known as CSI Ltd), after a management buyout on July 1 from DCS Group plc. CSI was the company's name before it became part of DCS Group in 1995.

New iSeries models unveiled, more in the pipeline. (07/23/03)
IBM announced on Monday (July 21) that it is providing a stepping-stone into the iSeries model 870 line. The new box, a 5/8-way, starts off with 7,700 CPW -- just above the 6,600 maximum of the i825 -- and goes up to 11,500 CPW with all eight processors activated.

PeopleSoft and JDE get it together -- new obstacles for Oracle. (07/23/03)
Last Friday (July 18th), PeopleSoft just about completed its friendly acquisition of J.D. Edwards making the newly-merged company the second biggest worldwide player in the ERP market after German behemoth SAP.

LANSA's formula for growth in straightened times. (07/23/03)
With doom and gloom still all around in the IT world, it is good to see companies that are still doing well in spite of everything. One of these companies is LANSA, a creator of a development environment and suite of e-business solutions that organisations use to implement up-to-the-minute business systems and technologies.

JDE/PeopleSoft deal gets green light, JDE users tell Oracle to back off. (07/16/03)
PeopleSoft looks like it is racing towards the finishing line in its amicable bid to buy midrange mainstay J.D. Edwards (JDE). On Monday (July 14), the company announced that the US Department of Justice had given the green light to the deal after examining its anti-trust consequences under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

Campbell Lee reiterates its strength in Scotland. (07/16/03)
Campbell Lee, Scotland's longest-established IT consultancy, says that it is reversing a drift to England for leading-edge iSeries know-how.

Win a ticket to Twickenham to see England v France. (07/16/03)
English rugby union fans are currently marvelling at the national side’s all-round international domination. Having trounced the likes of Australia, New Zealand and Wales this year, the team play a home leg match against France at Twickenham on September 6 -- and you can be there!

Intentia and SAP seize on J.D. Edwards fallout opportunity (07/09/03)
As speculation abounds around the PeopleSoft takeover of J.D. Edwards and Oracle's hostile takeover bid of PeopleSoft, industry sharks are beginning to circle ever closer to J.D. Edwards' customer base.

SME managers don't want to do it for themselves (07/09/03)
iSeries specialist enterprise applications provider, JBS, hopes to pep up the ASP market with its latest research that shows the majority of SME directors and managers would like to outsource their IT functions.

Crème de la crème in Cannes (07/09/03)
Top IBM experts from the Rochester and Toronto development laboratories will be imparting some of their knowledge at the IBM EMEA iSeries Technical Conference in Cannes from October 20th to the 24th.

CUA seeks reassurance over IBM/SCO court case (07/02/03)
The UK IBM Computer Users' Association (CUA) has demanded reassurance from IBM over the growing row between SCO and IBM over Big Blue's alleged non-contractual inclusion of licensed Unix code within Linux.

Sage gets its first UK Linux on iSeries customer (07/02/03)
A Hertfordshire flour miller has become the long-awaited first customer to try out the ground-breaking combination of Sage ERP running on Linux on an iSeries.

Oracle ups the stakes in PeopleSoft takeover battle. (06/18/03)
The PeopleSoft/JDE/Oracle saga continued to roll on unabated today (June 18) as Oracle upped its bid for PeopleSoft with an improved offer of USD19.50 per share, valuing the company at USD6.3bn (UKP3.73bn). Oracle also said it would file a counter law suit in Delaware against PeopleSoft, its board of directors, and J.D. Edwards "in response to their collective efforts to eliminate PeopleSoft shareholders' ability to accept Oracle's tender offer."

JDE 5 is a benchmark buster on iSeries. (06/18/03)
It was business as usual at the Quest J.D. Edwards user conference last week and one of the main announcements the ERP company was keen to make above the merger hubbub was a new benchmark it had reached on the iSeries.

ADVANCED BusinessLink teams up with Blue Chip Engineering. (06/18/03)
E-enablement specialist, ADVANCED BusinessLink, has teamed up with lone wolf maintenance and disaster recovery specialists, Blue Chip Customer Engineering, to push its Strategi suite of products into the UK.

Three is the magic number for new benchmark test (06/12/03)
Benchmarks tend to be based on top-of-the-line machines simulating fairly specialist computing environments that have very little relevance to the typical small-to-medium enterprise (SME). To counter this, the team at IBM’s Rochester labs have come up with a new approach especially for the iSeries which they have dubbed the Three-in-One Benchmark and the results were published on June 11.

Computer Software Group buys Chorus. (06/12/03)
“Talented” sports club CRM experts, Computer Software Group plc (CSG), has taken another step in its bid to offer a full, home-owned, back-end-to-front-end solution to its customers by buying out financials and accounting software provider, Chorus.

Oracle ruins the PeopleSoft/JDE wedding party (06/12/03)
On June 4 we reported on PeopleSoft’s intended acquisition of J.D Edwards (JDE), but on Friday, June 6, Oracle decided to throw a spanner in the works by announcing a $5.1 billion hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft.

PeopleSoft buys JDE, SSA GT to merge with Baan. (06/04/03)
Merger mania struck the ERP market this week as PeopleSoft announced its purchase of J.D. Edwards on Monday and the group that owns SSA GT was revealed as the victor in the battle to buy Baan on Tuesday.

iSeries market shows signs of improvement, say observers. (06/04/03)
It seems that all the advertising, marketing, new models and simplification in pricing structures might just be paying off. While no one is heralding a glittering new era of massive iSeries sales and a mass influx of IT managers onto the trusty machine, there are definitely signs of life around the midrange server that we all know and love.

iSeries market shows signs of improvement, say observers. (06/04/03)
It seems that all the advertising, marketing, new models and simplification in pricing structures might just be paying off. While no one is heralding a glittering new era of massive iSeries sales and a mass influx of IT managers onto the trusty machine, there are definitely signs of life around the midrange server that we all know and love.

IBM says new i810 eases upgrade path. (05/21/03)
IBM announced the new uniprocessor 750 CPW entry-level iSeries model 810 last week (May 13) in order to fill a specific product gap, according to Guy England, EMEA iSeries channels and solutions manager.

Ronseal and LPAR -- does what it says on the tin! (05/21/03)
Varnish expert Ronseal has opted not to gloss over its capacity problems, and instead has decided to get to the root of the problem by partitioning its iSeries using IBM's LPAR technology.

Big Blue launches new baby i810. (05/14/03)
IBM yesterday quietly announced a new entry-level iSeries, the Uniprocessor "Baby" i810-2565. Precise UK sterling and euro prices are unclear at this time, but Cheryl Ross, senior news editor of the iSeries Network, yesterday quoted US dollar prices as $11,000 for a base Standard Edition package, not including the memory, I/O and disk to make a working system, when she broke the story (see iSeries Network Story ID=16580 ).

Plumtree portal prevents pain for publisher. (05/14/03)
Staff at iSeries-driven global publishers, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, will no longer have multiple sign on problems, thanks to a new Plumtree-built enterprise information portal that links the whole company through one simple gateway.

Magic marches on with iBolt. (05/07/03)
Magic Software is celebrating the advent of its new suite of integration applications, iBolt, which includes the latest version of eDeveloper, v 9.4.

Baan sale "sooner rather than later". (04/30/03)
In recent weeks, there have been a number of rumours and counter rumours about the future of Dutch ERP giant Baan, but, according to the company, all will be revealed soon.

Internet saves billions for UK small businesses. (04/30/03)
According to findings published yesterday, small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) are saving UKP4 billion per year, thanks to the internet.

Human ignorance is a big pain in the ORSYP. (04/24/03)
Lack of planning and unreasonable, last minute requests are the biggest annoyance for IT departments, according to a recent survey conducted by job scheduling software specialists ORSYP.

Battle hots up for the future of BI. (04/24/03)
Just when you thought you had got your head around business intelligence, here comes integrated business intelligence (IBI), the currently leaderless fledgling market under scrutiny from Butler Group this week.

Northern firms host Sage on iSeries Forums. (04/24/03)
iSeries specialist Life IT has joined with Star Computer Group to host a series of Sage Line 500 forums. Called "Through the looking glass", the events are aimed at business people in the North and the first two forums will be held on April 30th and May 14th at the Manchester Business School.

Geac hopes for a heavenly chorus with System 21 Aurora (04/16/03)
System 21 users can look forward to an all-new, seamless and worry-free enterprise planning experience now that Geac has launched the Aurora factor on to the iSeries market.

Puma sprints ahead with WebSphere (04/16/03)
Puma, sportswear provider to the retail and consumer markets, has brought in Leeds-based iSeries specialist, Morpheus, to provide on-the-spot Java and WebSphere mentoring and support for its new improved "Puma Village."

Baan to be bought by SSA? (04/16/03)
As news broke on Monday (April 14 ) that Invensys plc, a one-time stalwart of the UK engineering industry, was to sell off UKP2.9bn of it business, speculation mounted as to the future of its Dutch ERP software arm, Baan.

Q&A: Two minutes with Malcolm Haines on iSeries marketing. (04/09/03)
I had a chance to sit down and have a chat with Malcolm Haines, the renowned British "chief propagandist" for the iSeries, at last month's iSeries Symposium held in Stratford-upon-Avon. We had a long and wide-ranging conversation; here's just a snippet.

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