ASCDI in the news
Financing
HP
IBM
iSeries
MACs
Op-Ed
Printers
RFID
Storage
Sun

ASCDI in the news

We welcome all of the companies voted into membership at the conference in Philadephia:

Adiva Computertechnology; Germany - Meyer Uli, Pres.
Aewin LLC; USA  - Evan Windholz, Pres.
CentricsIT, LLC; USA - Derek Odegard, Pres.
Smith Carriers; USA - Greg Smith, Pres.

*Corbel Solutions, LLC; USA - Joe Parker, VP Sales
*Hewlett Packard CDS; UK - Neale Brooks
*Inside Systems; Denmark - Andreas Fibiger, Pres.
*Interactive Pty; Australia - Clint Seagrave, Director
*Network Hardware Resale; USA - Mike Sheldon, Pres.
*One World Technology; USA - John Hackett, Pres.
*Puerto Rico Computer Service; USA - Luis Arabia, Pres.
*Prism Pointe Technology; USA - Mitch Wright, VP  
*SSCS, Inc.; USA - William Olund, VP
*Teksavers; USA - Rick Louden, CEO
*Vision Computer; UK - Rob Embers, Director

*These companies obtain full membership after attending an Ethics meeting during the next year. ^Back To Top

Financing

IBM Global Financing provides $4 million revolver to PC Universe
IBM Global Financing (IGF) has entered into a new financing arrangement with Florida-based PC Universe, a direct marketer and value-added reseller of information technology products and services. Under the agreement, IGF will establish a $4 million revolving line of credit that will give PC Universe the opportunity to deliver on its long-term goals for growth and expansion. The agreement would also give the company the financial flexibility to execute along its strategic plan. The revolving line of credit will be leveraged for account receivables and inventory financing. "Technology resellers like PC Universe have realized that financing can play a very important role in achieving greater success in the marketplace," said Rob Flood, director, IGF Commercial Financing, Americas. "In a dynamic and largely margin-driven business, resellers must ensure that their balance sheets are solid. IGF is excited to be partnering with PC Universe as they make significant growth oriented moves in their own business."
Visit www.ibm.com/financing.
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HP

HP's ProCurve Network unit gaining in corporate switches
HP's ProCurve Networking unit has expanded its market share with fast-selling switching gear that has helped drive up its sales and profits. Observers say it is emerging as the No. 2 player -- albeit a distant runner-up -- to Cisco Systems in the switching market. Now it is broadening its market reach with a new lineup of higher-end switching gear. ProCurve has targeted wireless and fixed-line-based Ethernet switches for companies. Analysts say the group's solid lineup and massive global reach are helping make it a more serious player, but challenging Cisco and one of its core businesses won't be easy. ProCurve isn't a big piece of HP's overall sales. Yet its growth the past few quarters was enough to warrant mention in HP's past two quarterly regulatory filings. Overall, HP's corporate investments unit posted $220 million of sales in the quarter ended July 31, up 42% from the year-ago period. In the filing, HP says the majority of those sales came from ProCurve. It says ProCurve's sales climbed 38% from the year-ago period. In addition, it gives ProCurve credit for driving down the group's operating losses. The company saw a $5 million loss in the quarter vs. $33 million loss a year ago.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM files patent on method to profit from patents
IBM Corp. says it has dreamed up a new method for profiting from its vast storehouse of patents. And by the way, the company wants to patent the idea. Beyond the circularity of the concept, IBM's application is notable because the company — the world's top patent holder — has been campaigning to improve the quality of patent filings and reduce so-called "business method" patents. The new patent application was initially filed in April 2006, was updated last April and published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently. It covers what IBM calls "a system and methods for extracting value from a portfolio of assets, for example a patent portfolio." Specifically, IBM — which collects more than $1 billion in patent royalties every year — describes a new process for licensing patents. Instead of smaller companies licensing technologies from patent holders like IBM in a plodding, one-by-one manner, IBM envisions a more dynamic system with "floating privileges," in which patents could be licensed quickly, as needed. The application says this floating privilege, once purchased, could be activated by a patent-infringement lawsuit. In other words, companies would buy the right to use a patent portfolio like IBM's as a legal shield for themselves — "just like purchasing a fire insurance policy," IBM's application contends.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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iSeries

Inventive Designers launches DTM for iSeries version 3
Inventive Designers recently launched a new release of Data/Text Merge (DTM) for iSeries, version 3. With this release, the OfficeVision/400 replacement gains better interoperability with Scriptura, the Belgium company's multi-platform document reformatting and routing engine, as well as compatibility with Word 2007 as a front-end interface for designing documents. DTM for iSeries allows users to automate the generation of business correspondence through the use of generalized "skeleton documents" and specific customer information stored in DB2/400 or other i5/OS data sources. The software also allows users to replace the OS/400 commands used by OfficeVision/400 with DTM for iSeries commands, if they still haven't moved away from OV/400. With version 3, Inventive Designers has spruced up the product's output capability. Now, DTM for iSeries users have a new "save to Scriptura format" option that links to the company's popular document management offering. With this release, Inventive Designers allows customers to use any version of Microsoft Word, up to Word 2007, to create and edit business correspondence.
Visit www.inventivedesigners.com.
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Moves, adds & changes

IBM snags HP partner executive
Louise Bishop, the channel marketing manager for HP’s worldwide partner organization, has jumped ship to take a channel post at arch-rival IBM. Sources said Bishop, a longtime HP executive, has taken a channel position in IBM's global business partner organization. It's rare for IBM to snag a top channel executive from rival HP. The executive departure comes after Hewlett-Packard last year took away the top spot from IBM as the world's largest technology company. HP has also surpassed Dell as the number one PC company worldwide. Before taking the channel marketing manager post for the HP partner organization, Bishop was Americas marketing manager for HP's ProCurve organization. Under her leadership, HP's ProCurve made significant channel gains against Cisco.
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Op-Ed

State of the System i: First-Hand Reports from Second-Hand Dealers
While few people think about it, much less talk about it, some of the things that make any data center-class computer system worth the extra money that companies shell out for them include the fact that they last for a long time without breaking and their components hold economic value for a lot longer than cheaper commodity iron. It is not unheard of for a mainframe or midrange server to run without any problems for a decade, particularly among companies with steady or only modestly growing workloads. It is not so easy to find commodity X86 servers that last so long in the field, but that may be a function more of the rapidly changing software, which often requires new hardware. Windows, whether on a PC or a server, has always taken more of the processing power enabled by Moore's Law than it gives back to end users for increasing the speed of their applications. This has not been true to the same extent for mainframe operating systems like z/OS and VSE, Unix platforms like AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX, or proprietary midrange platforms such as OS/400-i5/OS or OpenVMS. And that is another reason why older iron that runs these operating systems persists.
Read entire Op-Ed.

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Printers

Outlook strong for RFID printers
Adoption of RFID printer/encoders is poised for strong growth, and the products will remain the leading method for users to create and encode their own RFID tags for the foreseeable future, according to industry analysts and recent research. The long-term viability of the printer/encoder market was called into question following slower-than-expected supply chain adoption, the emergence of smart packaging solutions (in which RFID is embedded in the packaging itself), and recent strategic moves by leading printer/encoder manufacturers Printronix and Zebra Technologies. However, questions about the market strength and growth prospects should be put to rest, says Andrew Nathanson, director of Venture Development Corporation's (VDC) automatic identification and data collection research practice. Nathanson noted that stagnant supply chain RFID adoption is limiting the growth prospects for companies such as Printronix that are focused heavily on that segment. But he emphasized there are many use cases for RFID smart label printer/encoders outside the supply chain, and VDC predicts 60 percent compound annual growth for the product category through 2011. "We're seeing a lot of activity on both sides of the smart labeling market -- for Gen2 (UHF) technology and for 13.56 MHz (HF) technology." VDC expects especially high RFID adoption growth in the healthcare and airline markets.
Visit www.vdc-corp.com.
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RFID

Netc announces Netc envision
Netc announced Netc envision, an integrated, customized RFID enabled media barcode label solution. Netc envision can easily be interfaced with data security, data tracking and tape management systems. Netc patent-pending software makes it possible to read and write to a complete, integrated sheet of UHF GEN 2 RFID barcode labels at one time. Netc envision RFID software allows you to write VolSer and customized user data to the RFID chip. If desired you may password protect and lock this information for additional security. The software synchronizes the RFID antennas with the RFID reader to deliver maximum throughput and performance. The result is a fast, more accurate and secure process for RFID and barcode labeling of tape media.
Visit www.LabelArchitect.com.^Back To Top

Storage

QLogic SANbox 5600Q Series stackable switches now available from Hitachi Data Systems
QLogic Corp. announced that its SANbox 5600Q Series Fibre Channel stackable switches are now available from Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., and authorized Hitachi Data Systems resellers. SANbox 5600Q Series Fibre Channel stackable switches scale from eight to 16 user ports with the option to stack up to six SANbox 5600Q switches via four-packs of high speed 10Gb Fibre Channel inter-switch link (ISL) ports, yielding 96 total user ports. Additionally, Hitachi Data Systems has simplified the configuration of their SANbox 5600Q offerings, to include cost-competitive eight, 16 or 20 active port versions, along with all necessary 4Gb small form factor pluggables (SFPs) and applicable rail kits. This innovative approach gives customers seamless scalability and high performance in a pay-as-you-grow solution.
Visit www.qlogic.com.^Back To Top

Sun

Sun Micro introduces servers based on new chip
Sun Microsystems Inc launched the first server computers based on its newest microprocessors as it tries to boost sales of energy-efficient, high-performance computers for businesses. The servers, typically used for hosting Web sites and running corporate networks, use Sun Microsystems' UltraSparc T2 chip, which Sun introduced in August as the world's fastest commodity microprocessor. Sun says the new servers deliver the same performance in a quarter of the space and at less than half the cost of competing systems. The servers are Sun's latest attempt to gain share in a market in which it lags behind IBM and HP. Sun had 13 percent of worldwide server revenue in the second quarter, compared with IBM's 31 percent and HP's 28.2 percent, researcher IDC estimated. "Power efficiency is becoming the most attractive element of computing infrastructures," Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz said in an interview. "We have a huge shot at being the leader in power-efficient computing." Sun in August said it also planned to sell the UltraSparc T2 chip to makers of set-top boxes, network routers and other technology gear as it expands beyond its main business of server computers and data storage machines.
Visit www.sun.com.
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