Informing the IBM Community

Category: News

  • IBM i Services session added to UK conference

    Organisers at next week’s International i-Power conference have made a last-minute addition to an already jam-packed agenda. American expert Scott Forstie will present a 45 minute session entitled Introducing IBM i Services. International i-Power 2015 is British midrange user group i-UG’s biggest event of the year. PowerWire is media sponsor. It will be held at…

  • Sauce-maker puts ordering online with STREAM

    The company behind some of the UK’s best-known culinary brands has used STREAM from Proximity to improve its order-taking. Leigh, Lancashire-based AB World Foods produces Patak’s, Blue Dragon and Levi Roots sauces and condiments. It runs Infor’s IBM i-based LX (née BPCS) ERP package on Power7 hardware to process orders from Britain’s big supermarket chains…

  • Opinion – Give British IBM i users a SWMA amnesty

    As you will all know, IBM has an annual charge for its software maintenance (SWMA) for IBM i. This maintenance gives you access to IBM support, fixes, new functions and features (in the form or PTFs) and, of course, free upgrades to newer IBM i releases. What you may not realise is that if you…

  • UK conference expands agenda

    i-UG is gearing up for its strongest-ever conference in terms of technical education with an expanded agenda of workshops. The UK IBM i user group hits Wyboston Lakes, Bedfordshire, for International i-Power 2015 on September 9 and 10. PowerWire Europe is media sponsor. The first day of the Common Europe-affiliated organisation’s event will feature six…

  • IBM i/Linux combo pays off for ERP player

    An Italian solution provider has doubled its ERP sales by betting on IBM i and Linux. Sanmarco Informatica, based near Vicenza, has consolidated on model S814 Power hardware. The company is also doing a brisk trade in what it calls “cloud-on-site” systems, whereby it installs S814 servers at customers’ premises and manages them remotely. Sanmarco’s…

  • Opinion: Why IBM Power Systems are like Lego

    I like Lego. Always have. We had a load of bricks when I was growing up and I built loads of robots, spaceships and other models. Now I have children of my own and I get to build Lego sets with them too. I built the Lego Millennium Falcon with my eldest, which took a…

  • Mobile IBM i apps redefine Caprabo’s operations

    A major Spanish supermarket chain is mobilising its IBM i-driven back office with the help of ASNA. If you’ve ever been to the Catalonia or Navarra regions, the chances are that you’ve shopped in a Caprabo store. Part of the even larger Eroski Group, the company operates 320 shops serving more than 220,000 customers a…

  • IBM i sites change 3 trucks’ worth of data per day

    How much data is the average IBM i site changing on a daily basis? And what would it look like in the real world? Those are the questions posed by Maxava’s Simon O’Sullivan in an intriguing new blog post on the HA specialist’s website. O’Sullivan points out that a single transaction can be made up…

  • Power8 thrashes Xeon in financial workload tests

    Power8 processors pack over twice the punch of their x86 counterparts when it comes to running financial applications. Those were the findings presented by IBM to the benchmarking organisation STAC earlier this month. The STAC Summit in London attracted banking tech experts from all over Europe who heard how a Power8-based system set new performance…

  • SuperVessel launch shows OpenPower’s promise

    IBM’s announcement this month of SuperVessel, a free cloud for OpenPower research, was significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was made at the OpenPower Foundation Summit, held the week before last in China’s capital, Beijing. This, in itself, was important. Sales of IBM Power Systems all but dried up in China after Edward…

  • Letter from i-UG

    In the first article of a new regular series, Colin Spofford, treasurer of i-UG, reports on the UK midrange user group’s latest activities. On May 19, i-UG, the UK’s major user group for the IBM i platform, held our latest event in central London in the historic Royal Exchange Building. This was the first time…

  • HelpSystems adds SkyView to security line-up

    IBM i solutions giant HelpSystems has acquired midrange security specialist SkyView Partners. SkyView is the fourth IBM i-focused security firm HelpSystems has bought in recent years. The Minnesota-based company took over American firms PowerTech and Bytware in 2008. It purchased Sheffield, UK-based Safestone Technologies in 2012. All the brands involved in these earlier deals live…