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:


2010 WINTER CONFERENCE:
March 10 - 12, 2010
Orlando, FL - Walt Disney World Swan Resort


2010 EUROPEAN CONFERENCE:
June 23 - 25, 2010
Dublin, Ireland - Radisson Blu Royal Hotel


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.

ASCDI news
Financing
Green
IBM
Intermec
Market
Power
Software
Storage

ASCDI news

Fred Holwey joins re.Source Partners Asset Management
Fred Holwey has joined re.Source Partners Asset Management, Inc. in Clinton Township as Director of Operations.  Fred’s experience includes twenty years of production and manufacturing management with Ford Motor Company and Visteon. His recent experience includes high level inventory and logistics management for a major Amazon distribution center. Education includes a Bachelors Degree in Materials Logistics Management from Michigan State University, a Masters Degree in Operations Management from Kettering University and 6Sigma Green Belt certification. As Director of Operations Fred will be instrumental in the continuous development of processes to maximize total production and logistics efficiencies required to accurately process equipment volumes in excess of several hundred thousand units per year. In addition, he will contribute to the ongoing growth of re.Source Partners computer electronics recycling business. This business returns in excess of twenty million pounds of computer electronics to their commodity level for use in manufacturing as opposed to landfill disposition.           
Visit www.re-sourcepartners.com. ^Back To Top

Financing

Florida First Capital offers low interest SBA equipment loans
Small business owners and manufacturers who need financing to purchase new or used equipment can turn to the U.S. Small Business Administration's (SBA) "504" loan program and take advantage of historically low rates on its 10-year equipment loan. These loans are paired with private sector commercial loans to support manufacturing projects of up to $20 million. To be eligible, the equipment must be fixed and have an economic life of at least 10 years. SBA “504” loans offer small business owners and manufacturers access to low interest, long-term and fixed-rate financing with only 10 percent down payment requirements for the purchase, construction or renovation of owner-occupied commercial real estate and/or the acquisition of industrial equipment or other fixed assets.
Visit www.ffcfc.com.



IBM pushes smarter mid-market IT projects with more financing
Last year, IBM started offering enhanced financing deals to IT shops in the United States who would buy gear even though the global economy was on the skids so they could take advantage of an accelerated depreciation scheme set up by the Bush administration and extended by the Obama team. In June, the company said it was allocating $5 billion in funding to chase "smarter infrastructure" projects around the globe, which generally have an IT component. Now, IBM is aiming some financing deals at mid-market shops and expanding the financing it is offering to cover more regions and more products in its portfolio in an effort to boost sales in the fourth quarter. IBM is offering zero percent financing on its software portfolio, not just hardware, and its Lotus division is offering zero percent financing for three-year licensing terms. IBM's business partners can finance the software portions of deals they do before the end of the year through IGF. IBM is also rolling out a set of "Cost Buster" financing packages aimed specifically at midrange shops, which breaks the price for a financed solution down to a monthly per user fee.
Visit www.ibm.com/financing.
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Green

IBM advances data center efficiencies
IBM advances efficiencies with a new energy-saving modular data center and the completion of a showcase Green Data Center at Syracuse University. A new modular data center model puts computing power in the form of a trailer, which can be towed to remote locations or used as an on-demand addition at existing data centers. Such container-based modular data centers use less energy than traditional data centers, said Steven Sams, vice president of Site and Facilities for IBM Global Technology Services. IBM has dubbed the model portable modular data center (PMDC). PMDCs have a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.3, including the IT components and physical infrastructure such as chillers, UPS and other components, Sams said. That compares to a PUE of 2.3 or higher for most existing data centers, and a PUE of 1.5-1.7 for some of the newer ground-based data centers. The data center has an on-site electrical co-generation system fueled by natural gas microturbine engines, which will generate 100 percent of the center’s electricity. Meanwhile, its liquid cooling system will use double-effect absorption chillers to convert exhaust heat from the microturbines into chilled water to cool the data center’s servers, with sufficient excess cooling to handle the needs of an adjacent building.
For more, see related Power article below.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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IBM

Prolifics receives "Ready for IBM Rational" mark
Prolifics, the largest end-to-end systems integrator specializing in IBM technologies, announced its "Ready for IBM Rational" mark for the Prolifics AgileSOA Specification Profiles -- a bundled set of UML profiles and matching UML model templates for creating concise and high-value UML model specifications in a standardized manner that allows for sharing across the enterprise. Prolifics' certified consultants, proficient with the Rational software development platform, help their customers throughout the entire project lifecycle ranging from design and construction to requirements and analysis to software configuration management and delivery. In 2009, Prolifics was awarded the Outstanding Solution by a Value Added Reseller / Regional Systems Integrator (SI) for excellence in the implementation of an effective and innovative customer solution enabled by IBM Rational Software.
Visit www.prolifics.com.
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Intermec

New features enhance Intermec's industrial printer offering
Intermec Technologies announced enhanced versions of seven industrial printers. The improvements include all-in-one printer programming languages, increased memory and stronger network security and flexibility. The products equip operations, IT and business managers in warehouse, transportation and logistics, and manufacturing with smart, strong and secure bar code printers that address the growing demand for increased productivity, reduced application complexity, and lower total cost of ownership. The printers feature Intermec Smart Printing Technology enabling companies to deploy the printers as stand-alone smart clients running custom applications to reduce errors and improve process efficiencies. This capability eliminates the need for a host computer and its associated support costs, and delivers a complete solution at a lower total cost of ownership. In addition, with Intermec’s new, all-in-one printer programming language design, and integrated SmartSystems remote management software, businesses can benefit from seamless deployment, integration and reconfiguration in existing Intermec or mixed printer environments.
Visit www.intermec.com.
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Market

IDC sees modest IT spending growth, industry transformation in 2010
According to a new report by market research firm IDC, two themes will dominate events in the IT and telecommunications markets in 2010: recovery and transformation.  With a global economic recovery widely anticipated, modest growth in IT and telecommunications spending is expected. In terms of the recovery, IDC predicts that worldwide IT spending will grow by 3.2% in 2010, returning the industry to 2008 spending levels of about $1.5 trillion. According to IDC, emerging markets will drive more than half the new IT industry growth in 2010, with IT spending up 8-13% in the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Telecommunications spending will experience respectable growth of 3%, driven by a rebound in the IP and data segments in mature markets and strong growth in the mobility sector in emerging economies. IDC believes that transformation will impact every corner of the industry in 2010, including cloud services, mobile devices and mobile applications, video applications and more; all will put greater demands on public networks in 2010. IDC expects industry players will accelerate their migration toward converged IP platforms, expand their managed services footprints, and transform their service delivery platforms and business models to support the growing wholesale, connected devices, and machine-to-machine (M2M) opportunities.
Visit www.idc.com.
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Power

IBM partners with Emerson Network Power
Emerson Network Power announced that it is one of the companies collaborating with IBM to meet the rising demand for energy efficient data center capacity. IBM is strategically partnering with technology leaders such as Emerson Network Power to help customers expand their operations more efficiently through the use of modularized data centers. As part of the collaboration, IBM is working with Emerson Network Power to integrate its power and precision cooling products and services with IBM’s Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC). The PMDC can also be used as a mobile solution for disaster recovery, disaster avoidance and other mobile needs.
Visit www.ibm.com or www.emersonnetworkpower.com.
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Software

Halcyon Software launches Systems Operations Suite 3.0 software for IBM i
Halcyon Software announced the release of Systems Operations Suite 3.0, the latest version of its real-time systems assurance, security auditing and alerting software for the IBM i platform. In addition to handling IBM i messages, job queues, output queues and devices for issues or threshold breaches, this new software release allows for the monitoring of key business applications, supports flexible scheduling and the proactive monitoring and automatic management of system events, FTP activity and the security audit journal. This major new release is based on feedback from the Halcyon's User Group to ensure the Systems Operations Suite continues to address specific and common operational challenges and the need for organizations to do more with less resources. The Systems Operations Suite's new framework enables further integration into other Halcyon specialist tools so that monitoring of any web-based business applications can now be achieved.
Visit www.halcyonsoftware.com.^Back To Top

Storage

DataDirect Networks expands management team to capture surging demand in extreme data storage markets
Building upon a recent surge in business and a record financial quarter, DataDirect Networks, Inc. (DDN) announced the beginning of a strategic growth plan which will involve salesforce expansion across the world. To commence this initiative, DataDirect Networks announces the hiring of David Feldman as Vice President of Commercial Sales. In his role, Mr. Feldman will spearhead the company's initiatives around rapidly expanding application segments that are experiencing a surge in data growth, such as corporate backup and archive, Web 2.0 and cloud storage, digital surveillance, media and entertainment and life sciences. Prior to joining DataDirect Networks, Mr. Feldman led several sales teams in high-growth start-up companies and fostered rapid growth in market share. As a Senior Sales Director at Isilon, Mr. Feldman was responsible for overseeing a sales team that grew to manage over $70 million of annual revenue. Most recently, Mr. Feldman served as Worldwide Vice President of Sales at Blackwave, where he ran all aspects of business and sales force development.
Visit www.ddn.com.
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