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:

2011 USA WINTER RECEPTION
January 13, 2011
Atlanta, GA

2011 ASIA CONFERENCE
February 17 - 18, 2011
Singapore

2011 USA SPRING CONFERENCE
March 23 – 25, 2011
New Orleans, LA

2011 EUROPEAN SPRING RECEPTION
Thursday, 19 May 2011
London, England

2011 USA SUMMER RECEPTION
June 15, 2011
Chicago, IL

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.

Obituary
HP
IBM
Leasing
Looking ahead
Oracle
People
Storage
Trends

Obituary

Obituary
Panaseas Account Executive Randy Lloyd passed away in his sleep Friday, December 24, 2010 at the age of 54. Lloyd was in his fourth year at Panaseas International, a supplier of telecommunication products based in Houston. He died of a heart attack. Lloyd was a well-liked and respected member of the telecommunications community, and is remembered by his many customers for his knowledge of both products and people. Many customers appreciated that he took care to get to know people and their needs. “We are all feeling a profound sense of loss and shock at Lloyd’s passing,” said Brian Kiep, owner and president of Panaseas. Lloyd is survived by his wife of 32 years, Marynet, and 3 children: Courtney, Audrey and Eric and by his sister, Linda Stoll and two brothers, Terry and Marshall. Lloyd was preceded in death by his parents, Ray and Maggie Lloyd, and brother, Russell Lloyd.
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HP

HP launches Cisco trade-in promotion
HP announced the HP Networking "A Catalyst for Change" Cisco Trade-in Promotion for qualifying U.S. customers. HP estimates that nearly $9 billion in Cisco networking equipment is approaching end of life or service in 2011. The “A Catalyst for Change” program enables clients to upgrade from existing complex, proprietary and expensive Cisco network gear to simpler, open standards-based HP solutions that deliver up to 66 percent lower total cost of ownership. The “A Catalyst for Change” trade-in promotion is the first HP Networking program to deliver upfront savings with an additional 20 percent off the list price on HP A-Series and E-Series switches. The order must be accompanied with a trade-in of eligible Cisco Catalyst 2960/S Series, 3560/E Series/X Series, 3750/E Series/X Series, 4500 E Series, 4900 Series or 6500 Series, as well as Cisco Nexus 5000 Series or 7000 Series switches. More information about this promotion, including eligible products and requirements, is available through HP account managers, HP Enterprise Authorized Resellers and at www.hp.com/networking/CiscoTradeIn.
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IBM

iTech Solutions Group expands offerings with UNIT4 CODA Financials
UNIT4 CODA, provider of financial management software, has announced an agreement with iTech Solutions Group to deliver CODA Financials to the IBM i user community. The companies will work together to combine their respective expertise in hardware, software and services to deliver a complete solution for companies looking to upgrade their financial applications on the IBM i platform. Known for its integration capabilities, CODA Financials runs natively on IBM i and DB2, and easily integrates with other business applications. This means organizations with applications written in RPG, COBOL and/or Java can create real time interaction between those applications and CODA Financials using CODA Web services, all while running on one hardware platform. UNIT4 CODA has a long history of developing financial software specifically for IBM i—including a very loyal community of customers who have been using CODA Financials since the original version was released on the AS/400.
Visit www.itechsol.com.
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Leasing

Loans make comeback as new issuance doubles
Leveraged-loan issuance in the U.S. more than doubled this year, as private-equity firms sought funds for buyouts and borrowers refinanced debt amid a rebound from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. More than $369 billion of loans were raised as of Dec. 28, led by financing for the purchases of Tomkins Plc and Burger King Holdings Inc., up from $170 billion in 2009. Interest rates fell to 3.91 percentage points more than the London interbank offered rate on average, from 10.28 percentage points at the end of 2009, according to Standard & Poor’s Leveraged Commentary and Data. Cheap financing will bolster the loan market again in 2011, as buyout firms seek cash for acquisitions and borrowers refinance some of the more than $288 billion in bank debt due in the next four years, data from Barclays Capital and S&P LCD show. The return of collateralized loan obligations should also create demand as investors seek out higher returns while the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates near zero.
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Looking ahead

IBM, Oracle may gain on U.S. food-safety law’s tracking mandate
Changes to U.S. food-safety rules may generate sales for IBM, Oracle Corp. and other companies that can provide systems to track outbreaks of food-borne illness. The U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 21 and the Senate in November passed a bill instructing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to establish over the next two years how the tracking is to be accomplished. The study may lead to FDA requirements that farms and manufacturers buy computer systems to monitor and track shipments, according to agriculture trade groups that have started work on tracking technology. The bill, which awaits President Barack Obama’s signature, may lead to hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales for companies that produce the labels and scanning devices to enable tracking systems, said Ray Connelly, general manager of closely held Truetrac, a developer of agricultural product-tracking software in Salinas, California. An estimated 76 million people contract food-borne illnesses in the U.S. each year, with 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Those illnesses cost the U.S. economy $152 billion a year in health care and related expenses, a report by Georgetown University’s Produce Safety Project in Washington concluded.
Visit www.ibm.com and www.oracle.com.
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Oracle

Oracle to get interest on award
A federal judge has ruled that SAP must pay interest on a $1.3 billion award that Oracle won against it in a November copyright-infringement case, but not the amount sought by Oracle. Oracle asked the court to award it $211.7 million in "prejudgment interest," in addition to the $1.3 billion award. The judge did not specify the interest payment. SAP said the court's method will result in a payment of about $16.5 million.
Visit www.oracle.com.
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People

Avnet Technology Solutions names new sales and services executives for North American HP and IBM Solutions Groups
Avnet Technology Solutions appointed two IT industry veterans to executive roles within its IBM and HP Solutions Groups in North America. Gale Brown will serve as vice president of services, IBM Solutions group; and Phyllis McCullagh has been named vice president of field sales, HP Solutions group. With more than 50 years of combined industry experience, both join Avnet with strong backgrounds in channel sales and services.

Brown joins Avnet with extensive IBM experience, which she will draw from to accelerate the sale of services through Avnet’s IBM partner channel. Most recently, she served as the vice president of business partner sales, general business at IBM. Her IBM career spanned numerous positions of leadership, including vice president of channel sales west region, global client executive for Avnet, director of operations channel management North America, and other sales management positions in software and services. Her achievements at IBM were recognized by CRN magazine in 2009, when she was named to their list of the 100 Most Powerful Women of the Channel.
 
McCullagh will use her years of experience in the technology industry to support Avnet’s HP partner channel in the U.S.  She was a senior executive with Compaq in both channel sales and marketing roles, and also spent two years at CompTIA - the Computer Technology Industry Association - creating membership programs and services for channel partner members. Most recently, she served as vice president of distribution and sales operations at D-Link Systems, Inc. Prior to D-Link Systems, she was the president, North America, for GN Netcom, Inc., a leading manufacturer of headsets for unified communications, offices and call centers. In that role she was recognized by the Boston Women’s Business Journal in their list of Women to Watch for 2009.
Visit www.avnet.com.
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Storage

DataDirect Networks surges behind growth of big data
DataDirect Networks (DDN) announced the company has been named one of the 100 fastest-growing private companies in the Los Angeles area -- the second largest metro in the United States -- by the Los Angeles Business Journal, and was one of only 20 companies on the list with more than $100M in annual revenue. The award marked the latest in a series of honors for the 12-year-old company. Recognition on the annual Los Angeles Business Journal list follows DDN's inclusion in both the Inc. 500|5000 and Deloitte's Technology Fast 500. DDN is the only data storage company to appear on both of the latter two lists in 2010. This year the company announced its expansion into the Middle East and secured major customer wins as it expands into Asia, with much of the new activity coming through a burgeoning network of partners that include Dell, HP, IBM and Sony.
Visit www.ddn.com.
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Trends

IBM unveils 'Next Five in Five' innovations impacting societal trends
IBM formally unveiled the fifth annual "Next Five in Five" - a list of innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years. They are:

• You'll beam up your friends in 3-D: In the next five years, 3-D interfaces - like those in the movies - will let you interact with 3-D holograms of your friends in real time.

• Batteries will breathe air to power our devices:  Instead of the heavy lithium-ion batteries used today, scientists are working on batteries that use the air we breathe to react with energy-dense metal, eliminating a key inhibitor to longer lasting batteries. If successful, the result will be a lightweight, powerful and rechargeable battery capable of powering everything from electric cars to consumer devices.

• You won't need to be a scientist to save the planet: In five years, sensors in your phone, your car, your wallet and even your tweets will collect data that will give scientists a real-time picture of your environment. You'll be able to contribute this data to fight global warming, save endangered species or track invasive plants or animals that threaten ecosystems around the world.

• Your commute will be personalized: In the next five years, advanced analytics technologies will provide personalized recommendations that get commuters where they need to go in the fastest time. Adaptive traffic systems will intuitively learn traveler patterns and behavior to provide more dynamic travel safety and route information to travelers than is available today.

• Computers will help energize your city:  Innovations in computers and data centers are enabling the excessive heat and energy that they give off to do things like heat buildings in the winter and power air conditioning in the summer.

The Next Five in Five is based on market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM's Labs around the world that can make these innovations possible.
Visit www.ibm.com.
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