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:

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

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE: June 17 - 19, 2009
Prague, Czech Republic

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
Cisco
Economy
Financing and leasing
Going green
IBM
New products
Security
Sun

Book review

Passive Optical Networks: Principles and Practice
This book is organized into seven chapters, the first two of which comprise a reasonably good introduction and a review of PON architectures, both written by Cedric Lam. Chapter 3 is an in depth exploration of PON optical technologies. Chapter 4 is a long, deep dive into transceiver technology. Chapter 5 is a relatively short discussion of ranging and dynamic bandwidth allocation and Chapter 6 is a short examination of relevant protection architectures. The final Chapter 7 is a discussion of optical characterization, diagnosis and performance monitoring. The book features a detailed table of contents and a reasonably complete index, both of which are important in a technical book of this sort. Also importantly, throughout the book there are a good number of figures and tables, all of which are relevant and well done.

Altogether, Passive Optical Networks is a good piece of work. It covers the relatively narrow subject well, deeply and authoritatively. It is not, however, an easy read – even for a serious student, professional engineer or technically astute manager. The writing is choppy and stylistically lacking. The book is beneficial if you have a serious need to know about Passive Optical Networks (the technologies and standards) at a fairly technical level.

Authors: Cedric Lam, et al
Publisher: Academic Press (October 2007)
ISBN-10: 0123738539
ISBN-13: 978-0123738530
Price: $99.95Back To Top

Cisco

Cisco announces SMB security, network storage products
Cisco Systems announced a slew of products aimed at the small to medium-size business market, building on an announcement that the company would invest $100 million on providing products and support for midmarket companies. Among the products announced was the Cisco Spam and Virus Blocker, a security appliance that provides protection for a business's network and critical data from viruses and malicious e-mail attacks while mitigating spam, the NSS2000 and NSS3000 network storage systems and a collaboration and communications system, the Smart Business Communications System (SBCS) Release 1.4.  “We understand that small businesses need to see the immediate business benefits from their technology investment, especially during these tough economic times, and that's why we've built these new products to address their essential business needs of security, connectivity and productivity,” said Cisco’s senior vice president of the small business technology group, Ian Pennell. A recent Forrester Research report found small to medium-size businesses are planning to spend a healthy percentage of their 2009 IT budgets on security, with data protection listed as a top priority.
Visit www.cisco.com.
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Economy

S&P: Corporate borrowers may place renewed focus on credit quality
Much of the recent commentary about the economic and financial climate carries a sense of gloom. But according to a new Standard & Poor's Ratings Services report, some benefits could emerge after the current turbulence. In the report titled "Amid The Credit Crunch And Economic Turmoil, Rated Corporate Borrowers May Become More Prudent," Standard & Poor's said it expects the managements of many nonfinancial corporate borrowers to focus on renewed financial discretion, to the point that the proportion of companies that it rates investment grade may increase, at least for a while. "We definitely expect some managements to increase their focus on credit quality--at least for the short term," said Nicholas Riccio, a managing director in Standard & Poor's Corporate Ratings group. "To some degree, this movement will be obscured over the next couple of quarters by rising defaults and the declining fortunes of those firms that leveraged up too much in recent years. But the current turmoil means that the days of overleveraged LBOs, dividend recaps, and short-term easy money are gone for now." Risk aversion remains high because of the financial crisis, and despite governments' efforts to calm markets. While the downturn may drive many rated corporate borrowers into default, those that survive will likely implement more conservative financial policies with an eye toward achieving enhanced creditworthiness.

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Financing and leasing

IBM to HP: our financing beats your financing
Hewlett-Packard touts its recently announced zero-percent financing option as a good deal for SMB customers. But IBM's financing executives beg to differ, saying IBM offers a better deal with its own 36-month leasing option because customers don't have to give back the system when the lease is up. Financing from vendors has become more important as other credit programs used by solution providers to finance their customers' IT purchases are disappearing. Last week, a Channelweb.com story uncovered how several channel financing programs for VARs, including IBM's Flexible Credit program, are closing or making their terms stricter because of the recession.

HP launched a zero-percent financing promotion through its HP Financial Services subsidiary called "HP Total Financing," covering a broad array of the company's products and services for SMBs. The zero-percent financing applied to a 12-month purchasing plan and a 36-month leasing plan. The lease offer includes an option to purchase the product at fair market value at the end of the lease term. Not surprisingly, IBM financing executives think IBM offers a better deal. The company offers a 36-month leasing plan with what the company calls "ongoing low rates." But it adds several options for customers when the lease is up. As with the HP plan, customers can simply return the product. IBM customers also have the option to continue leasing at the monthly rate they were paying all along. Or they can renegotiate a lease extension based on the product's fair market value. Or they can purchase the product at fair market value.
Visit www.hp.com/hpfinancialservices or www.ibm.com/financing.

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Going green

Green IT critical corporate initiative
New research from Aberdeen shows a marked increase in demand for green IT solutions and green IT strategy. Moving beyond the need for cost savings and energy savings, organizations say that corporate responsibility initiatives and the need to be perceived as a leader in green are the primary drivers in their focus on green. "Virtualization is the top green IT strategy deployed by Best-in-Class organizations," reports Jeffrey Hill, senior research analyst. "Establishing corporate energy policy, consolidating data centers and complying with industry best practices are also key strategies employed by the Best-in-Class." Best-in-Class organizations were better able to decrease power consumption in the data center, decrease floor space occupied by the data center, decrease data center cooling requirements and decrease data center operating costs. A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: 3Par and IBM. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com//summary/report/benchmark/5357-RA-green-technology-ecosystem.asp.
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IBM

IBM fourth quarter sales
IBM's worldwide sales in the fourth quarter declined 6.4 per cent to just over $27bn, but IBM was able to boost net income by 12 per cent to $4.43bn. And thanks to share buybacks, IBM showed a 17.1 per cent increase in earnings per share to $3.28. The company provides an overall revenue figure for sales each quarter for its Systems and Technology Group, which makes and sells servers, storage, retail systems, chips and other technology; then the company provides growth rates for different bits of its product lines within STG. In the fourth quarter STG had a tough quarter, with revenues down 20 per cent to $5.4bn; sales fell 16 per cent when measured in local currencies before revenues were brought back to New York and converted into U.S. dollars. So the problem is not currencies. System z mainframe sales fell by 6 per cent, while the Converged p line (which is nearly all of the former System p and System i lines at this point) grew by 8 per cent, and Legacy i sales fell by 92 per cent. System x sales were the big disappointment for IBM in Q4, with sales down 32 per cent; storage was down 20 per cent.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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New products

Fujitsu Siemens Computers launches new thin client at midrange level
Fujitsu Siemens Computers recently presented its new powerful thin client, the FUTRO S450. The FUTRO S450 works with an AMD Sempron TF20 processor and on the operating system eLux RL - Embedded Linux, a Linux operating system that was specially developed to attune the FUTRO S450 to maximum performance in server-based environments. It is kept at the right temperature with a passive cooling concept rather than a fan; rotating drives and moving components have also been dropped in favor of flash memory. The resulting low-noise makes the device ideal in a working environment and it also enjoys a longer lifespan. In addition, the FUTRO S450 eliminates security concerns as its TC Computing concept ensures maximum data security. The local image is write-protected and user data is not saved locally and undesired software cannot be installed, averting virus threats. Market observers from IDC predict growth in the virtualization market and see the market in 2011 at above two million units in EMEA alone. Gartner calculates a plus of 46 per cent by 2012. In the first half of this year alone thin client sales increased by 15.3 per cent.
Visit www.fujitsu-siemens.de.
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Security

Leading organizations unveil new interoperability specification for encryption key management
The Security Division of EMC, Seagate and Thales (formerly nCipher) announced the creation of a jointly developed specification for enterprise key management that is engineered to dramatically simplify how companies encrypt and safeguard information. The companies – leaders in enterprise computing, storage, and security – developed the Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) in response to customers’ needs to enable the widespread use of encryption. The companies intend to submit KMIP to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for advancement through the organization’s open standards process. KMIP was developed by HP, IBM, RSA and Thales to meet the compelling needs of today’s enterprise data center environments, with Brocade, LSI and Seagate joining the effort. All seven companies will now be devoting time and resources to OASIS for ongoing development. According to IDC, 44 percent of enterprises plan to encrypt more than 75 percent of their data by 2009, and one of the top two issues related to deploying encryption is the ability to recover the data.
Visit http://xml.coverpages.org/KMIP/.
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Sun

Sun drives huge growth in adoption of GlassFish
Sun Microsystems, Inc. announced new enterprise customers and service providers who are leveraging products in the Sun GlassFish Portfolio to grow their businesses and develop innovative solutions. New GlassFish customers include: Medavie BlueCross, Pretium Telecom and TravelMuse. Companies including GlassFish software as part of their solutions: Argela, CareSpark, CGI, Ericsson, Gintel, Hub City Media, ICEsoft Technologies Inc., IPgallery, Personeta, Telepo, Tieto Enator and Yenlo. "Sun has been leading the way in open source development and changing how we get products to market with more transparency and collaboration. The latest wave of customer wins and third party support for the GlassFish Portfolio shows that our strategy is working," said Mark Herring, vice president, Software Infrastructure, Sun Microsystems. "Companies are choosing innovative products developed in open source with enterprise-level support as a low-cost alternative to proprietary software."
Visit www.sun.com. ^Back To Top