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:

REGIONAL MEETING: January 15, 2009
Gaylord Texan Hotel - DALLAS, TEXAS

WINTER CONFERENCE: March 4 - 6, 2009
Hard Rock Hotel - LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

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
"Greenergy" forum
IBM
Leasing
Partnership
RFID
Secondary market
Software
Storage

Book review

Voice over WLANs: The Complete Guide
This book is a thorough treatment of the subject that will guide just about anyone through the background, underlying technologies, planning processes and managerial issues associated with VoWLANs. Finneran begins with an insightful overview on the convergence of WLANs and VoIP. He then patiently and thoroughly builds the necessary technical foundation in radio transmission, WLAN components, media access control protocols, and privacy and security issues. His explanation of the IP protocol suite and its application in voice routing and QoS management is at just the right level. Drilling deeper into the subject, he guides the reader through network design, traffic engineering, VoWLAN configuration, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), and network management, all of which is pretty technical fare, but Finneran presents it in such a way that it goes down easily. Voice over WLANs: The Compete Guide is absolutely essential for anyone with a need to know about VoWLANs at a practical level. Highly recommended.

Authors: Michael Finneran
Publisher: Newnes (November 2007)
ISBN-10: 075068299X
ISBN-13: 978-0750682992
Price: $59.95^Back To Top

"Greenergy" forum

Intel, HP describe green strategy
Reaffirming their commitment to green computing, technology giants Intel and HP announced their respective planet-saving initiatives at the "Greenergy" forum, a slight twist from the traditional Synergy event that the two firms have been jointly organizing in the Philippines since 1997. In the next five years, Intel has the following environmental goals: to reduce absolute global warming gas footprint by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce energy consumption per chip 5% per year from 2007 through 2012; ensure that Intel products maintain energy efficiency for the next two product generations; reduce water use per chip by 2012 from 2007 levels; reduce generation of chemical waste per chip by 10% by 2012 from 2007 levels; and recycle 80% of chemical and solid waste generated per year.

HP has collaborated with Dreamworks Animation in coming up with the Halo studio--a network of rooms that lets HP employees meet with colleagues from across the globe by providing life-size, real-time, eye-to-eye conferencing with no delay, which has led to productivity gains and huge travel cost savings.  HP has also embarked on the "Planet Partners Program" which offers to take back end-of-life HP and non-HP computing equipment like PCs, handhelds, notebooks, servers, printers, etc., for recycling. HP has recycled more than 250 million HP print cartridges worldwide since the inception of the Planet Partners program in 1991. In the future, HP will continue to "green" its operations by reducing their combined product and operations energy use and associated greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 25% in 2010 and recover 2 billion pounds of computing and printing equipment by 2010.
Visit www.intel.com or www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM, Consumers Energy to test smart metering pilot program
IBM has signed a service agreement with Consumers Energy, a Michigan electric and natural gas utility, to help plan, deploy and test an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and smart grid field pilot network. The field pilot is expected to help Consumers Energy evaluate several AMI technologies needed for full deployment and will confirm vendor capabilities. The project plan calls for testing the AMI network's ability to support minimum smart grid functions, collect interval energy usage data for demand response analysis and capture operational metrics for full deployment planning. The project also is designed to emphasize AMI field pilot aspects and include the smart grid as a secondary objective. Consumers Energy's AMI technology, systems and deployment pilot, which includes meter and telecommunications installations, is scheduled to begin in 2009. The plan for the pilot project includes hardware, telecommunications, operations and back-office system software solutions from numerous vendors.
Visit www.ibm.com or www.consumersenergy.com.
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Leasing

Dell launches new leasing, financing options
Dell says it will launch new competitive leasing and financing options for U.S.-based small, medium and large businesses, and public entities. The company will offer zero percent financing to qualified large business and institutional customers and cut prices on some products. Dell will also offer deferred payment plans to some businesses. "Fair Market Value (FMV) lease rotation programs allow customers to pay for use of their technology and return or exchange it at the end of the lease term to take advantage of the latest technological advancements, lowering total cost of ownership by as much as 20.5%," Dell said in a release announcing the new program. "Small and medium businesses can use FMV leasing for low monthly payments, flexible end-of-term options and an easy way to help ensure their employees are equipped with the latest technology for maximum productivity." In September, Dell undertook a strategic review of its financial services business with the intent of possibly selling it, but decided to stay in the equipment financing business despite the challenges.
Visit www.dell.com.
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Partnership

Xerox/HCL pairing holds promise of sales, savings
Xerox's global agreement with HCL Technologies has the two companies closely entwined. Xerox will turn to HCL to handle some of its midrange computing work as Xerox handles HCL's document management — essentially a variety of services revolving around paperwork and data. The two also jointly will market their services to their respective big clients. HCL specializes in information technology and software development outsourcing. Xerox also will outsource some of its research and development and engineering to HCL in the future, particularly in developing software and re-engineering components. Xerox currently is cutting about 3,000 people or 5 percent of its North American and European work forces. Separate from the HCL deal, Xerox announced it will scan and image documents for IBM as part of that company's Managed Business Process Services, a division that automates back-office functions such as payroll and human resources for clients. And Computer Sciences Corp. of Virginia announced earlier this year it and Xerox would jointly begin pitching their IT and document management products to such industries as manufacturing, healthcare and financial services.
Visit www.xerox.com or www.hcltech.com
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RFID

New developments discussed at RFID forum
The 2008 IDTechEx Active RFID and RTLS Summit in Dallas was attended by 204 people and 18 exhibitors. IDTechEx has run this show for a few years and this year saw remarkable developments in the technology and its application compared to previous years. Some highlights:

Focus on Real Time Locating Systems (RTLS). The number of companies offering solutions in RTLS has trebled in the last three years. Increasingly applications for active RFID want RTLS capability, particularly in healthcare, manufacturing and other asset management applications. IDTechEx expects the RTLS market in 2008 to be $140 million.

Energy harvesting. A key issue of active RFID tags has always been their lifetime – due to the battery in the tag. Presentations covered energy harvesting where motion, light, heat, RF and other energy forms can be used to recharge batteries. Several active RFID companies are integrating these into tags already.

Third generation active RFID. First generation active RFID was a tag communicating to a reader for ID and other information. Second generation involves multiple readers to enable RTLS. Now third generation is the development of adhoc networks – the tags become readers – which usually involves sensors for large area wireless sensor networks. This is called Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN).
Visit www.idtechex.com/active.
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Secondary market

Used PCs still being dumped despite high demand
More used computers could be reused; only 44 percent of computers entering the secondary market end up in the hands of a new owner, despite the fact that worldwide demand for such computers is greater than supply, according to a Gartner report. Export tariffs and high transportation costs are restricting exports from mature markets to emerging markets. Environmental legislation is also making it harder for low-volume players to compete, according to Gartner. Demand is growing fastest in the Middle East, Africa and emerging markets in the Asia and Pacific region, in particular China. The largest exporters of secondary PCs are North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia.

Where do all those used computers go?
If just 44 percent of the systems entering the market are reused, and we know that number is higher (in both real and percentage terms) than it was three years ago, what's happening to the majority of the systems that don't make it to secondary deployment? Not every PC that enters the secondary supply chain is going to be suitable for reuse, due to age, hardware failure, or licensing issues that give a conscientious vendor pause. It seems likely that some of the PCs designated for reuse actually end up being broken down and used for parts. Alternatively, the various components of a system may end up resold individually through eBay or another auction site. The breakdown process doesn't stop once the secondary systems hit their destination countries; local resellers presumably break down system models that don't sell well in order to repair those that do. Stories about back-alley chop shops and the citizens (some of whom are children) who labor there, exposed to toxic chemicals with no form of safety gear, have fueled calls for increased vendor responsibility and oversight on these matters, but it's extraordinarily difficult for any OEM to secure a secondary PC recycling channel end-to-end without actually owning/operating the entire network.

New rage at work: used, revamped IT gear
"There will be a bunch of systems that will come out of downsizing or failed companies," says Robert Houghton, president of Redemtech, one of the many providers that help corporations move large volumes of used equipment and determine whether it can be resold. In light of the capital crunch, some larger companies are starting to take a second look at buying used IT gear. Most of Redemtech's clients, for instance, are companies with 5,000 or more employees. "We're seeing some of our largest customers reevaluate the use of used-equipment as a stopgap measure," says Houghton. Those companies are asking Redemtech to help supplement their existing stock with used equipment. "I think that if credit were flowing freely, if capital were easily available, they probably would not be doing this," he says.

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Software

IBM helps organizations collaborate, lowering risk and cost of software
In this era of globalization and economic change, organizations are facing growing pressures to use software as a competitive differentiator. To help companies address this challenge, IBM announced new offerings designed to lower software costs by helping business leaders and IT professionals more effectively collaborate. Using IBM's new Rational Quality Management Portfolio, key decision makers such as CIOs, lawyers and financial consultants now have a voice in the software delivery process. At the core of IBM's Rational Quality Management Portfolio is IBM Rational Quality Manager, a new, collaborative "hub" designed to unify IT professionals with key business stakeholders within an organization. IBM's open, Jazz technology platform helps Rational Quality Manager users collaborate in a Web-based centralized test management environment. As part of this initiative, for a limited time current HP customers and business partners who are looking to migrate to a complete portfolio can take advantage of IBM's 25% discount on its quality management software.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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Storage

Storage technology for tough times
With the amount of data growing by leaps and bounds every year, technologies that can make the most of storage capacity and reduce the amount of physical space, power and maintenance that storing terabytes or petabytes of data requires are becoming increasingly attractive to large and even mid-sized organizations. Now, building on the success of secondary storage optimization (SSO), a number of vendors have introduced optimization solutions aimed directly at primary storage. Although it's early days for primary storage optimization (PSO), with only a few hundred confirmed customers, analyst Eric Burgener, who covers storage optimization for the Taneja Group, sees PSO and technologies like wide area data services (WADS) gaining momentum and making inroads with storage customers over the next year.

In defining the PSO market, Burgener identifies two distinct camps: the inline approaches (exemplified by Storwize) and the post-processing approaches (exemplified by NetApp and Ocarina Networks).  Which approach is right for optimally storing your primary data depends on the problem you are trying to solve, said Burgener. "There's no one [PSO] technology that's the best for all kinds of situations," he said. "The different approaches characterize what happens to writes to storage. All PSO solutions handle reads of capacity-optimized data at wire speeds." The main benefit of PSO is that it reduces the overall space and power required for primary storage. PSO can also be used with Secondary Storage Optimization solutions, oftentimes resulting in a significant overall reduction in space and power consumption.
Visit www.enterprisestorageforum.com. ^Back To Top