The head of IBM's mainframe group is looking to bring mobile and social workloads into the platform in another move that would help the mainframe stay relevant and fend off competition from lower-cost systems.
Before tablets, smartphones, and PCs became prominent, "big iron" mainframes led down the path to computing, becoming a staple of enterprise business worldwide several decades ago.
Well, much to my amusement I recently discovered that there's a new name for Internet users in my age group: We are now called "Silver Surfers" (with apparently no nod to Marvel and its superhero of the same name).
An IT services company in China has picked an IBM mainframe to provide online services for up to 300 million citizens, including many in rural areas who will access the services through kiosks in community centers and other public places, IBM said.
IBM is once again offering budding Australian programmers, who have a hankering to work with mainframes and are aged 18 years or older, the chance to tinker with IBM System z mainframe servers.
Mainframe vendors in Australia have exceeded their highest yearly revenues in just six months to more than $115 million defying doomsday predictions of the platforms demise.
Mention cloud computing to a mainframe professional, and he's likely to roll his eyes. Cloud is just a much-hyped new name for what mainframes have done for years, he'll say.
Software and services fueled IBM growth in the second quarter of 2011, the company said Monday.
Addressing some of the chief problems faced by mainframe operators today, CA Technologies has updated its stack of mainframe management software to help cut costs and simplify management.
BMC Software said Friday it has acquired a range of IMS (information management system) database software and related customers from Neon Enterprise Software, which recently lost a legal battle with IBM over a mainframe-related product called zPrime. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Exploiting recent hardware enhancements that IBM added into its System z mainframe servers, enterprise software provider BMC has updated its line of performance tuning products to help customers get more from the latest version of the DB2 database.
Mention cloud computing to a mainframe professional, and he's likely to roll his eyes. Cloud is just a new name -- and a lot of hype -- for what mainframes have done for years, he'll say.
Continuing its low-key crusade for greater mainframe openness (or less IBM dominance of that market), Microsoft has invested an undisclosed amount of money in mainframe emulator provider TurboHercules, said the Paris company.
Enterprises struggling to fill demands for Cobol skills should consider an application modernisation program which could also pave the way for migration off the mainframe to an open system.
China is unveiling a new supercomputer on Thursday that incorporates thousands of graphics chips and can reach a sustained performance of 2.5 petaflops, making it one of the fastest systems in the world.