Upcoming Meeting Notice

The Association of Service and Computer Dealers International (ASCDI) is a 30 year old, worldwide non-profit organization made up of companies who provide technology solutions, technical support or value added services to the business community.

Members and non-members are invited to learn how to grow your business, find new business opportunities, hear from industry representatives and enjoy some fabulous networking events at our conferences:

ANNUAL ASIAN CONFERENCE:  November 14-15
BANGKOK, THAILAND

REGIONAL MEETING: January 15, 2009
DALLAS, TEXAS

Click here for more information on ALL ASCDI MEETINGS, to view the agendas, lodging details, attendee lists and to REGISTER AT THE EARLY BIRD RATE.

Book review
Financing
IBM
In memoriam
Legal
MACs
Power
Security
Sun
Tech spending

Book review

Global IPv6 Strategies: From Business Analysis to Operational Planning
The case for IPv6 is compelling, including increased address space, ease of autoconfiguration and tight integration of mobility options. As IP networks evolve, IPv6 eventually will replace IPv4—there really is no doubt about that. However, making an orderly and efficient transition from a global IPv4 public Internet and a myriad of other public and private IPv4 networks to a global IPv6 environment is a real challenge. The authors make the point that timing is everything in any business strategy and certainly in with respect to transitioning to IPv6. Executives, managers, senior analysts and other business leaders responsible for IP networks—Cisco-based or otherwise—will find Global IPv6 Strategies to be the right book at the right time. Highly recommended.

Authors: Patrick Grossetete, Ciprian Popovicui and Fred Wettling
Publisher: Cisco Press (May 2008)
ISBN-10: 158705-343-8
ISBN-13: 978-158705-343-6
Price: $44.99
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Financing

Network Liquidators closes on $6 million additional financing, receives new $10 million credit facility
Network Liquidators, Inc., a buyer and seller of high-quality pre-owned and refurbished networking and telecommunications equipment, has recently closed a private financing of more than $6 million to support the Company’s growth. GunnAllen Financial acted as the placement agent in this financing. The Company also recently closed on a $10 million credit facility with Bank of America, which replaced a similar facility with another bank.  "We believe closing on these two transactions during such tough economic times speaks volumes about the continued progress of our organization," says CEO Barry Shevlin.  "We look forward to increasing our product offerings to provide even greater service to our clients." Founded in 2001, Network Liquidators debuted on the Inc. 500 in 2006, and management has driven revenue to more than $41 million in seven years.
Visit www.networkliquidators.com.
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IBM

IBM quadruples value points to entice Sun SPARC customers
IBM announced several enhancements to its IBM Power Rewards migration program including a 4X increase in reward points for customers moving workloads from Sun SPARC, UltraSPARC or SPARC64 processor-based servers, from either Sun or Fujitsu, to IBM Power Systems. The IBM Power Rewards program, similar to a frequent flyer incentive, offers reward points to competitively-installed customers based on the number of HP, Sun or other cores retired when moving to Power Systems. Customers can redeem points toward no-charge migration services to move from HP-UX or Sun Solaris to AIX or Linux operating environments. As part of the Power Rewards enhancements announced, IBM has increased the value per core for Sun or Fujitsu servers based on SPARC, UltraSPARC, or SPARC64 processors from 1,000 points to 4,000 points per core, making each core of a SPARC processor redeemable for up to $4,000 worth of no-charge IBM migration services. Sun recently announced end-of-life for all SPARC-IV products.
Visit www.ibm.com/power.
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In memoriam

Tom Jarosh, former AS/400 General Manager, dies at 55
Tom Jarosh, the IBM executive who took the AS/400 line through the Y2K crisis, the MRP-to-ERP upgrade cycle and the dot-com at the end of the 1990s, passed away on October 17. Jarosh spent his career at Big Blue, and was still intimately involved with Big Blue's Systems and Technology Group. The cause of death was melanoma. Jarosh was raised in Pittsburgh and was the oldest of 10 children in the family. He got his bachelor's in electrical engineering from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and in 1975, he joined IBM as a systems engineer trainee in that same Ohio city. Jarosh worked as a Systems Engineer for three years, and then worked as a marketing rep for three years. In 1981, he took over marketing for the Great Lakes region and began his climb at Big Blue, serving in marketing and sales positions in different regions until he was made director of scientific and technical computing for the United States in February 1989. That was when IBM launched the RS/6000 AIX-based server and workstation line, which started out slowly but which obviously has grown in the past two decades--now rivaling IBM's mainframe business in terms of annual revenues. Jarosh did a stint as head of the AIX-RS/6000 business in 1996 and was named general manager of the AS/400 Division in November 1997. In 2000, Jarosh was tapped to be vice president of business development for IBM's Server Group and then in 2003 he became vice president of operations for Systems and Technology Group. Jarosh is survived by his three daughters and five grandchildren.
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Legal

Comdisco collects and corrects
Chicage Tribune
Nobody has enjoyed losing money in the stock market crash of 2008, just as nobody liked it when the dot-com bubble burst eight years ago. A group of senior executives from Chicago's once-great Comdisco Inc. really didn't like it. And ever since their company failed in 2001, they've been fighting in court to avoid paying the bill for a stock deal gone bad. Now, after years of legal wrangling, the day of reckoning could be near. Comdisco was a technology icon until the founder's son, Nicholas Pontikes, took over in the midst of Internet mania. He poured the computer-leasing company's capital into risky ventures, including an ill-fated broadband play called Prism. Bankruptcy swiftly followed.
Read entire article.
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Moves, adds & changes

Another AS/400 user group powers down
Last week, after 26 years of being a community for AS/400 developers, the Application Systems Users Group of Greater Cleveland announced that it was powering itself down. The move follows the relatively recent closures of AS/400 user groups in the Denver and Phoenix metropolitan areas. Andy Gladys, the ASUGGC's founder and president, posted a message to members and the rest of the AS/400 community.  Cleveland was an industrial powerhouse at the turn of the 20th century, and the large diversity of manufacturers and distributors serving all kinds of industries was still pretty vibrant 30 years ago. But the exit of manufacturing and distribution jobs in Cleveland and other hot-beds of midrange computing has done much to decimate local user groups. User group mergers are happening across all platforms: three independent user groups for Hewlett-Packard--Encompass, short for the Enterprise Computing Association and spawned out of the DECUS user group for Digital Equipment users that was founded in 1961; ITUG, formerly the International Tandem User Group and still dedicated to the NonStop platform; and HP-Interex EMEA, the European arm of the HP Interex user group that did not go under in 2005-- agreed to pool their resources and their members to create a single user group organization to be named Connect. HP Interex, the North American group, has already shut down.^Back To Top

Power

Phihong 33.6W single port midspans now in stock
Phihong USA, a global leader in Power-over-Ethernet solutions, is now stocking the POE36U-1AT, a high-power, single-port, Power-over-Ethernet adapter.  The POE36U-1AT conforms to the IEEE802.3at standards, also known as PoE Plus, which enables it to deliver up to 33.6W of power on a single Ethernet port.  This PoE midspan powers a more expansive range of applications, including IP telephones, wireless network access points, Blue Tooth access points, security cameras and IP print servers.  This device has also been designed with the protocol required for Cisco AP1250 Series access points to run in full power mode. The POE36U-1AT provides fully compliant detection, disconnect and voltage control, and boasts cUL/UL and CE safety approvals.  Additionally, the adapter is gigabit-compatible, incorporates diagnostic LEDs, and provides full over-voltage and over-current protection, which prevents short-circuiting.  It measures 5.51 inches in length by 2.55 inches in width and stands 1.42 inches high. 
Visit www.midspans.com or www.phihong.com.
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Security

IBM research unveils "security-on-a-stick"
Resembling a memory stick with an integrated display, a prototype USB device developed at IBM's Zurich Research Lab brings a new level of security to online banking for consumers. Pilot devices are ready and available to banks for trials. The Zone Trusted Information Channel (ZTIC) plugs into the USB port of any computer and creates a direct, secure channel to a bank's online transaction server, bypassing the PC which could be infected by malicious software (malware) or susceptible to hacker attacks. The consumer can use the security stick to logon and validate all transactions via a display, while the USB device is securely connected to the server, safeguarding against today's ever more fiendish forms of attacks that can manipulate data in the background, hidden from the consumer and the bank. The USB device adds an extra level of security to the existing authentication solutions provided by smart card, PIN or one-time validation code, in order to counter the newest and most highly manipulative security threats.
Visit www.ibm.com/research.
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Sun

Sun Microsystems delivers Solaris 10 10/08 release
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced the latest version of the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) – Solaris 10 10/08. The new version builds on the core strengths of the Solaris 10 OS to help customers maximize asset usage and systems performance, manage datacenter complexity, preserve business continuity and reduce costs. Solaris 10 10/08 includes numerous product updates and enhancements, several of which were done through the OpenSolaris community. Solaris 10 10/08 is available now on Sun systems and will be available for download in early November at: http://www.sun.com/solaris.  The Solaris 10 10/08 release is the result of the collaboration between Sun engineers and OpenSolaris community members. All the new features Sun is delivering with this release were first delivered into OpenSolaris before being included in the enterprise Solaris 10 10/08 release.
Visit www.opensolaris.org.
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Tech spending

Tech spending outlook: from bleak to bleaker
A new survey shows that tech spending cuts are widespread and that things are only going to get worse. Forty percent of businesses are decreasing their information-technology budgets, according to a poll of 243 of IT chiefs conducted in October by CIO Magazine. An additional 34% say that they plan to keep IT spending flat. On average, the survey found budgets will drop 3%. But the situation is even bleaker than that: businesses with more than $1 billion in revenue are making the biggest cuts. And these decisions are pretty recent: whereas 44% of these businesses expected to increase their IT budgets back in July, now only 23% expect to spend more. Meanwhile, the 27% that anticipated making cuts in July has swelled to 44%. The percentage of midsize businesses saying they’ll cut their budgets climbed from 27% in July to 42% in October. The percentage of small businesses planning to make budget cuts grew more modestly, from 27% in July to 33% in October. Thirty-five percent of these businesses now say they’ll increase spending, down from 51% in July. It looks as though businesses plan to cut back on purchases of software, hardware and consulting services before they cut staffs. Seventy-three percent of businesses say they have either postponed or plan to postpone tech projects, 69% have renegotiated or plan to renegotiate existing contracts, and 65% have cut or plan to cut spending on contractor and consultants. The one (sort of) bright spot in the CIO survey is for tech workers: only 34% of businesses say they’re laying off staff – and 23% say they’ve already made their cuts.
Visit www.cio.com.
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