IBM

Layoffs ahead for Big Blue services?

IBM rattled the markets on Thursday evening when it missed its first quarter earnings targets. Now, the industry is waiting to see how Big Blue--which rarely slips up on financial forecasts--will react.

An IBM insider on Friday said changes, most likely involving some layoffs, are planned for the middle of the second quarter.

Disappointing earnings from other tech companies fans fears that corporate spending on information technology is slowing, or is weaker than expected. Sun Microsystems saw its revenue fall, while Siebel and BMC Software issued warnings.

IBM's CFO Mark Loughridge blamed Big Blue's miss on "execution … Read more

Big Blue comes through for Java gear

As expected, start-up Azul Systems has won some big-time backing from IBM.

The two companies announced Wednesday that IBM Global Services will provide support in North America for special-purpose hardware from Azul that's designed to make Java programs run faster. The network-attached Azul Compute Appliances are scheduled for general availability this spring.

Perhaps it's just serendipity, Big Blue coming to the aid of a young company whose name is the Spanish word for "blue."

OASIS foe claims victory in IBM patent giveaway

Call it the six-week patent war.

Lawrence Rosen, a lawyer with Rosenlaw & Einschlag and author of "Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law," on Sunday declared victory in the battle he spearheaded against OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for its patent policy (OASIS patent policy sparks boycott, February 22, 2005).

"I don't think it is too soon to congratulate ourselves that a huge battle has been won," Rosen wrote in response to Sunday's story in the New York Times reporting that IBM would make all future … Read more

HP dings IBM on server speed test

After a drubbing at the hands of IBM on a server speed test, the leader of Hewlett-Packard's high-end server group launched at counterattack at Big Blue on his blog Monday. Rich Marcello, though, missed an opportunity to attack the speed test itself.

In November, IBM's new p5-595 server nearly tripled the number of transactions per minute that HP's top-end Superdome could perform on a speed test called TPC-C. But Marcello questioned the usefulness of IBM's accomplishment.

"The result has little real-world significance," Marcello said. He presented several reasons: The next-generation "Montecito" version … Read more

Why vendors tout "SOAs"

In the business software market, one of the most common buzzwords is services-oriented architecture, or SOA.

Nearly ever vendor touts the benefits of an SOA to business customers. But those same benefits accrue to tech vendors as well--perhaps even more, according to industry executives.

Here's the basic idea of an SOA: you design your IT systems so that individual "services," or applications, can be reused and combined with others.

The approach is not new. But newer technologies, notably XML and Web services, make SOAs more realistic.

If done right, business customers save money by reusing programs they'… Read more

IBM ousts EMC, HP for storage in German bank

Commerzbank AG, a large German bank, has swapped out a raft storage systems from EMC and Hewlett-Packard for a few large systems from IBM that will hold around 450 terabytes, or enough storage for 450 million books with a thousand pages each.

The agreement, which is worth several million, will involve installing 13 TotalStorage DS8000 storage systems from IBM for about 100 disparate systems from EMC and HP.

Large companies live for these sort of contracts, which can involve a global technology bake off that can last for several months and involve thousands of air miles. Still, the effort pays … Read more

Storage virtualization not a fantasy, says IBM

If there's a recurring theme at IBM, it's that software and services are its future. That's true even in the hardware-centric world of storage.

IBM on Wednesday said that Cisco--a long-time consumer of EMC's storage gear--has bought IBM's storage virtualization product. Big Blue says it now has over 1,000 customers of storage virtualization.

With its storage virtualization, IBM says that a customer can pool several different physical storage devices and manage them as a single entity, cutting down on administration costs and complexity.

A customer, who attended an IBM press event in Cambridge, Mass. … Read more

IBM releases Linux-on-Power programming tool

Linux on IBM's Power processors today isn't widely used, but Big Blue has added a little more meat to the bones of an attempt to make it commercially viable. IBM announced Thursday it's released programming software called the Performance Simulator for Linux on Power to help programmers fine-tune programs that run on Linux on Power.

With the software, "Users of Linux on Power will be able to examine how their code executes on various IBM Power processors so that they can identify and avoid common performance hazards on these processors," IBM said on its AlphaWorks … Read more

TPG mum on Lenovo investment rumor

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Texas Pacific Group, among several other investment companies, is planning to take a sizeable stake in China's Lenovo Group, but thus far the deep-pocketed capital firm is refusing to comment on the possibility of completing such a deal. TPG representatives called the potential investment a "rumor" when asked about the report on Wednesday, and said they would likely have nothing to say regarding the story in the near future.

The ground is still shaking from Lenovo's blockbuster $1.75 billion deal to buy IBM's Personal Computing Division, making … Read more