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ASCDI Inside

ASCDI elects record new number of members

The ASCDI Conference in Las Vegas saw the election of thirty-five new member companies into the association. They are listed below. Future editions of NOW will give readers small briefs on these companies.

AERC.com – NJ - Michael George
AlphaCom, Inc. - MN - Larry DuMoulin
Akibia - MA - Patrick Zanella
APS Group, Inc. - MN - Lyle Peterson
Argecy Computer Corp. - MI - Dave Mendelson
AssetLink Japan - Japan - Katsu Tsutsumi
Champsystems Inc. - OR - Tim Stell, Jim Stell
Dansk Computer Center A/S - Denmark - Johannes Bach
Foxtec Corp. - TX - TJ Russu
Global Link Technology - CO - Michael Wright
Marketex Computer Corp. - CA - Russell Schneiger
MemoryTen - CA - Kenneth Olsen
Meridian Leasing - IL - Tom Haug
Minicomputer Exchange, Inc.-CA-Walter Grueninger, John McFarland
Mojo Systems – WA - Rod Janson
Neo Networks - Canada - Bruce Kim
NewAge Technology Solutions - NJ - Patrick Fay
Newmarket I.T. - TX - Jake Player
Nostro A/S - Denmark - Kim Kramer
Nova Datacom, LLC - VA - Alex Cho
Orange Coast Computer Group - CA - Robert Guzzo
Pan Atlantic Technology Corp., Inc. - NJ - Neb Altinis
Server & Computer Repair - CA - Philippe Srour
ServIT, Inc. - GA - Tony Merendino
Somerset Equipment Sales - CT - Pedro Wasmer
Stallard Technologies, Inc. - KS - James Stallard
Sun Union Canada Ltd. - Canada - Michael Dong
Support Resources, Inc. - TX - William Behrens III
Systems Dot Com Co., Ltd. - Thailand - Porndet Angsamaporn
TBCS Used IT - Germany - Torben Bues
Technogroup IT - Service GmbH - Germany - Claus Fischer
tip|Capital - MI - Scott Grady
Triad Computer Connection, Inc. - WA - Steve Nichols
Wildfire Systems Ltd. - UK - Mark Andrews

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IBM

IBM offers upgrade, trade-in promotions to bolster System i sales
IBM announced a number of promotions that are designed to lower the cost of buying a modern System i and get customers to spend now rather than later. The upgrade and trade-in promotion deals that IBM announced concurrently with the launch of the first Power6-based server--a System p 570 AIX box, as it turns out, but no System i variant as yet--are ones that are familiar in structure to deals gone by. The System i Upgrade Promotion expires on November 16. It offers customers who upgrade from specific iSeries Model 810 and 825 servers to specific i5 520, 525, and 550 servers a rebate that varies not only depending on the machines involved in the deal, but also by when the customer does the deal. Customers who do an upgrade between now and September 30, which is the end of the third quarter of this year, get slightly higher rebates than they would if they do a deal between October 1 and November 16.

IBM also modified another trade-in rebate promotion that it put on the books on April 10, when the user-priced i5 515 and 525 servers were launched. The main modification in this deal is that IBM added the i5 525 to the list of eligible machines.  IBM also added the new i5 525 server to an existing promotion that allowed customers buying a new i5 box or upgrading to one who also bought a Capacity BackUp (CBU) variant of the i5 machine for disaster recovery and high availability another set of rebates. Finally, IBM also announced that it has extended its no-charge removal deal for vintage System/36, AS/400, and iSeries iron--yes, with some of these iSeries machines being seven or more years old now, they, too are vintage boxes--to include customers who buy the new user-priced System i 515 and 525 servers.
Visit www.ibm.com.


IBM lays off 1,500, mostly in services
IBM laid off 1,573 employees as part of a continuing overhaul of its services unit, the company said. Most of the layoffs came from IBM's services unit and most from North America, said Edward Barbini, a company spokesman. The layoffs were part of a restructuring effort the company announced during its first quarter financial results presentation in April. During the earnings calls, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge said the company needed to address the cost of its services unit in North America. "We said then we were going to do this," Barbini said. Based on past layoffs, about 20% of those laid off will find other jobs at IBM, Barbini said. At the end of 2006, IBM had about 355,000 employees. According to union leaders, IBM laid off more than 1,300 people from its global services division earlier this month.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Intermec

Intermec introduces the world's safest mobile computer
Intermec is now shipping the new CK32IS handheld computer, which provides industries like chemical, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, grain, textile and mining a powerful, intrinsically safe, extremely rugged handheld computer. The CK32IS will carry the most extensive list of global hazardous environmental ratings--including ATEX and IEC at launch, UL shortly thereafter--of any handheld computer, so it can be deployed anywhere in the world. The CK32IS was designed from inception for hazardous environments, meeting the most stringent requirements not only for flammable gases, vapors and liquids but also for dust, fibers and flyings. The mobile computer has been ATEX-certified for use in Zone 0 (gases) and Zone 20 (dusts and fibers) environments--the highest possible safety ratings, requiring double-fault protection of circuitry. In addition, the product's accessories meet the latest associated apparatus certifications to provide the highest level of safety.
Visit www.intermec.com.
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Market

Report: IBM retains #1 position in worldwide server revenue
Gartner reported that IBM continues to hold the number one position in worldwide server revenue share, with 29.8 percent revenue share in the first quarter of 2007, continuing its 8 consecutive years of leadership. As organizations increasingly consolidate workloads onto high-end systems, IBM is well positioned to take advantage of this trend through its leadership in UNIX and mainframes. According to Gartner, IBM's System z mainframe led servers priced at $250,000 or more with revenue with 31.4 percent share, growing 12 percent year to year. IBM also led the industry worldwide in UNIX servers with 32.7 percent revenue share.  According to Gartner IBM grew revenue with its System x business by 7.3 percent and increased shipments of its BladeCenter servers by 12.7 percent and revenue by 15.5 percent.
Visit www.gartner.com.
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Moves, adds and changes

Agilysys to buy Sun reseller Innovativ
IT distributor Agilysys Inc. continued its strategy of growing by acquisition, announcing plans to buy Innovativ Systems Design Inc., a major U.S. reseller of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s servers and storage products. It's the third purchase in six months for Agilysys, whose ultimate goal is to double in size to become a US$1 billion business within two years. Agilysys will pay US$100 million in cash for Innovativ. The deal also includes a provision for the vendor to make an extra maximum payment of $90 million provided the Innovativ business achieves specific financial targets in the first two years after purchase. Agilysys hopes to close the acquisition on or around July 1. With headquarters in Edison, New Jersey, Innovativ is a systems integrator and reseller of servers, enterprise storage management and services, with a particular emphasis on the financial services and telecommunications industries.
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New

New IBM chip to debut
Delivering on its promise of a superfast server chip, IBM Corp. said its new Power6 microprocessor will go on sale in June, boasting twice the clock speed of the previous generation while consuming roughly the same amount of power. The chips will be manufactured at IBM's East Fishkill complex. The dramatic performance boost comes as the semiconductor industry has largely shifted its focus away from pure performance measurements and instead has become more concerned with a balance of performance and power consumption. While other chipmakers are dialing down clock speeds and adding more computing engines, or cores, to their chips to manage the competing concerns, IBM said its new dual-core chip is a breakthrough on both fronts. Analysts said the chip, which operates at 4.7 gigahertz and cycles at a speed 25 million times as fast as the flap of hummingbird wings, will allow businesses to consolidate servers and handle substantially larger workloads. By comparison, Intel Corp.'s Itanium 2 server processor tops out at 1.66 gigahertz. In addition to raw power, the new IBM chip also has massive bandwidth - 300 gigabytes per second. To feed data quickly to the processor, IBM has quadrupled the amount of on-chip memory, or cache, to eight megabytes. The chip is designed for higher-end servers running the Unix operating system and is accompanied by the launch of a new server designed around it.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Power

Comprehensive line of surge suppressors released
Para Systems, Inc. announces a new line of surge suppressors.  The Minuteman surge suppressors can be categorized into the following four classifications:  rotating outlets, designed to alleviate the issue of plugging a number of multiple transformer “blocks” into a power strip without covering other outlets; child safety surge suppressors, designed to avoid shock from accidental contact with electrical power; ruggedized surge suppressors, designed to operate in harsh environments; and others.  All of the new surge suppressors are wall mountable, thus saving desk and floor space.  Several provide protection for coax, phone lines, fax lines and modem lines.  Para Systems includes full end-user support that includes toll-free technical service; the products are manufactured in accordance with RoHS guidelines.
Visit www.minutemanups.com.

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Software

Tidal Software joins industry leaders in Interop Vendor Alliance
Tidal Software, a leading provider of application scheduling and performance management software, announced it has joined the Interop Vendor Alliance, an organization that works to ensure optimal vendor technology interoperability with Microsoft systems. Tidal solutions will help advance interoperability within the enterprise job scheduler and application performance management sectors. Tidal solutions will be tested in the Interop Vender Alliance labs. In the latest version of its flagship product, Tidal Enteprise Scheduler 5.3, Tidal delivered greater SQL Server interoperability that enables tighter integration of SQL jobs into master scheduling across the enterprise. Formed in 2006, the Interop Vendor Alliance is an industrywide group working to identify and share opportunities to better connect people, data and diverse systems through better interoperability with Microsoft systems and to jointly market the interoperability solutions of its members.
Visit www.interopvendoralliance.org or www.tidalsoftware.com.
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Sun

Sun Microsystems server revenue grows
Sun Microsystems Inc. saw its year-to-year total server revenue market share grow for the fifth straight quarter in Q1’07, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. Sun’s year-to-year total server factory revenue grew 6.3 percent. The company is the number one Unix server revenue vendor as customers continue to embrace the free and open Solaris operating system. With the recent launch of its new SPARC enterprise servers - co-developed with Fujitsu - which became available in Q2’07, Sun expects customer interest in its servers to continue to grow. “We did well in a traditionally soft quarter for the company,” said John Fowler, executive vice president, Sun Systems Group. “Our high-end UNIX server sales were particularly strong as customers turned to Solaris to help with virtualization and consolidation. And with the SPARC enterprise servers now in the market, new Intel and AMD-based products coming soon, and Niagara2 on the horizon, we continue to strengthen our product line,” he added.
Visit www.sun.com.
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