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


2010 SUMMER REGIONAL RECEPTION
July 14, 2010
Minneapolis, MN

2010 FALL CONFERENCE
October 6 - 8, 2010
San Francisco, CA

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.

Cable
Data protection
Employment
HP
IBM
Obituary
Power
Product lines

Cable

Belden introduces one all-new and two enhanced precision video coax cables
Belden is pleased to announce Belden Brilliance 1794A Precision Video Coax Cable, the first cable designed specifically to meet the requirements of emerging 1080p/60 (in U.S.), 1080p/50 (in EU) 3 Gigabit applications. Belden also announces the expansion of its highly popular line of Brilliance Low Loss Precision Video Coax Cables (1694A), with a water-blocked version and a dual link version.  Both cables are designed for use in SDI, HD-SDI and 1080p/50-60 applications, as well as analog video. The new cables were shown for the first time at the 2010 NAB Show in Las Vegas.  Belden also featured the new Belden FiberExpress Brilliance Fiber Optic Connector, offering fiber terminations in five seconds or less. 
Visit www.belden.com.
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Data protection

Crossroads Systems to demo SPHiNX for Power Systems
Crossroads Systems, Inc. announced its participation at COMMON's 2010 Annual Meeting and Exposition from May 3-5 in Orlando, Florida. The company will demonstrate its SPHiNX for Power Systems virtual tape solution. Crossroads' SPHiNX solution, a dedicated virtual tape appliance, delivers optimized data protection and resiliency for IBM Power Systems (AS/400) environments. Three of Crossroads' partners -- Help/Systems, 10ZiG and CIBER -- will also be exhibiting at the COMMON event. COMMON is the world's largest users group of midrange IBM and IBM-compatible technology. The organization comprises more than 4,000 individual and corporate members, representing more than 22,000 IT professionals involved with the IBM Power Systems and related solutions.
Visit www.crossroads.com or www.common.org.
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Employment

Are IBM, Google, Apple, etc. conspiring on hiring?
The Justice Dept. believes IBM, Google, Apple, Intel and other large tech companies are attempting to hold down compensation for some employees by agreeing not to recruit from each other. From a Wall Street Journal news article about the investigation: The inquiry is focused on whether companies, particularly in the technology sector, have agreed not to recruit each others' employees in ways that violate antitrust law. Specifically, the probe is looking into whether the companies' hiring practices are costing skilled computer engineers and other workers opportunities to change jobs for higher pay or better benefits. After a probe that began more than a year ago, Justice Department investigators have concluded that such agreements do raise significant competitive concerns, according to the people familiar with the matter. . . .
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HP

HP's new energy-efficient chip tech
Hewlett-Packard is unveiling a breakthrough technology invented in the 70s and successfully prototyped in 2008 in the HP labs. Called "memristors," these almost-atomic-scale devices can act as a replacement to standard transistor switches used in flash memory but with added features that make flash technology look almost medieval by comparison. For one, they also hold memory (hence the name memristor) even in the absence of electrical current. This will both dramatically reduce the energy consumption of memristor computers and also dramatically increase the amount of memory that can be stored in one card. But the really exciting innovation is that memristors can be linked and stacked three-dimensionally, a feature that closely resembles the biological technology of the brain synapse. Within three years HP believes it will be able to double the memory capacity per square centimeter over a typical next-generation flash card (estimated at 10 gigabytes per square centimeter), spelling the beginning of the end for flash memory. According to experts, flash memory has only a few more generations left before it hits its limit. Memristors, on the other hand, will start out at 20 gigabytes per square centimeter and have an almost unending horizon of scalability.
Visit www.hp.com.
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IBM

IBM selling vintage iSeries boxes at a premium
The iSeries Model 810 that was announced in May 2003 at a list price of $12,000 including a single processor rated at 1,020 on IBM's Commercial Processing Workload (CPW) test is being sold by IBM GF for $5,595 with an OS/400 V5R3 license. The original Model 810 didn't have all the features IBM has in the used box, which has 2 GB of memory and four 35.2 GB disks. An iSeries Model 825, which had from three to six 1.1 GHz Power4 processors and which was rated at between 3,600 and 6,600 CPWs, has a street value of $25,538 with 3 GB of main memory, four 35.2 GB disks, a bunch of other features, and an OS/400 V5R3 license. With OS/400 Standard Edition, the base model of this machine listed for $353,551 when it shipped in the first quarter of 2003. IBM also has two iSeries Model 870 configurations--one with eight processors rated at 11,500 CPWs with 16 GB of main memory and 45 disk arms and another with 32 GB and 90 disk drives--that are priced with OS/400 V5R3 licenses for $65,723 an $82,973, respectively. And an iSeries Model 890 with 16 1.3 GHz Power4 processors rated at 20,000 CPWs with 16 GB of memory and a mere three disks (again, with OS/400 V5R3) has a $162,576 price tag.
See the IBM Global Financing page here.
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Obituary

Robert H. Nelson
Bob Nelson, one of the original Microsoft Small Business Specialist Community (SBSC) program managers out of Redmond, has recently passed away. Bob succumbed to conditions related to mesothelioma (learn more about this disease HERE), a condition developed from his working in Navy shipyards early in his career around asbestos. I worked closely with Bob over the years and watched his mastery at work as he developed popular prize programs, including the Grand Canyon River Rafting Sweepstakes and the Smart Car contest. Off work, I enjoyed many long training rides with Bob, as we’re both avid cyclists. You can learn more about Bob Nelson HERE. 
Harry Brelsford | CEO | SMB Nation, Inc. | www.smbnation.com

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Power

New Minuteman PRO-RT series UPS serves as ‘electrical firewall’
Para Systems, Inc. announced the release of the Minuteman PRO-RT series, a new line of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) designed to provide fail-safe protection from all power anomalies for small to medium-sized telephone, security and server systems. The PRO-RT UPSs are the newest addition to the PRO-E Series, Minuteman’s most successful and widely used product line with more than 400,000 units sold to date. Aimed at the small to medium-sized business market, the PRO-RT product line currently includes the PRO1000RT (1000VA) and PRO1500RT (1500VA). In addition to protecting attached equipment from catastrophic surges and spikes, the PRO-RT’s feature automatic voltage regulation to protect during brownouts.  They are also equipped with more battery power during blackouts, providing longer run-times than competitive units. As an additional bonus, Minuteman’s SentryPlus power monitoring and management software is included free with all models. 
Visit www.minutemanups.com/prort.
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Product lines

Kisco upgrades Twitter interface for IBM i with new interactive features
Kisco Information Systems announces a new release of its interface to the Twitter social networking service. SNDTWEET runs on IBM i and can be used to post messages through Twitter. SNDTWEET lets customers monitor message queues, including submitting remote responses to error messages. It also includes a file activity monitoring tool. Customers can implement their own applications, including personal tweets, project coordination, company informational tweets and more. The latest version, release level 2.01, has several remote status inquiries that you can use to prompt your system to post a tweet with current system status information. Status inquiries currently implemented include a system activity summary, a batch activity summary, a summary of interactive users and a status of SNDTWEET monitored message queues. Also added with the new release are two end-user features that enable SNDTWEET for user application needs.
Visit www.kisco.com.
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