AlexGr - Slashdot User

Lessons from Google's Failure in Los Angeles-> 0

Submitted by willdavid on Monday October 24 2011, @01:33PM

willdavid writes "Jeff Gould says he loves Gmail as a consumer, but it isn't fit for the enterprise, and the mess in Los Angeles shows why. When the CIO isn't talking to the largest group of users (in this case LAPD), your IT project is likely to go off the rails."
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TurboHercules Takes on IBM-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Thursday October 21 2010, @05:03AM

AlexGr writes "This article on MainframeZone by Phil Smith is the best summary I've seen on alternatives to the IBM mainframe over the years. He gives an unbiased summary of the TurboHercules situation and then concludes: "In this case, while IBM probably has the legal right to stop TurboHercules (at least in the U.S.), it seems foolish to do so in the long term for the continued success of System z.""
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It's Not Your Father's Linux Market Anymore-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Wednesday October 20 2010, @08:05AM

AlexGr writes "This article by Jeff Gould is causing quite a stir. A recent Red Hat marketing newsletter sternly instructs Red Hat channel partners that customers who choose not to renew their RHEL subscriptions "must de-install Red Hat Enterprise Linux software from the servers with the expired subscriptions." Is this acceptable under the tenets of open source? Or does Red Hat have every right to control use of "their" brand of Linux?"
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Is Apple's business model destined to fail? 0

Submitted by mutherhacker on Wednesday October 20 2010, @07:16AM

mutherhacker writes "In a world where automated systems are taking over a large part of the manual labor from humans, and where more and more people study and work to design, build and maintain technology, could we eventually see the failure of Apple's business model? Since the introduction of iStuff, Apple's market has been one of users who didn't have time/and or desire to tinker and customize their gear. They just want the thing to work and look good. Plain and Simple. But since more and more people are becoming technology savvy, isn't there going to be an increase in users who just don't care what Steve Jobs thinks is best, and want to customize their phone's home screen or change the interface on their home computer? Is Apple destined to marginalize itself should it not change it's business model?"

It’s Not Your Father’s Linux Market An-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Thursday October 14 2010, @03:52AM

AlexGr writes "In a recent article by Jeff Gould he talks about the proprietary nature of Linux in the hands of companies like Oracle and Red Hat. What I found most interesting was this:
"A recent Red Hat marketing newsletter (http://partnernews.redhat.com/pop/rh0610/static/25198/html/en_eng.html) sternly instructs Red Hat channel partners that customers who choose not to renew their RHEL subscriptions "must de-install Red Hat Enterprise Linux software from the servers with the expired subscriptions". GPL fans will point out that this injunction is mere table-pounding intimidation that has no legal force, but that's beside the point. As far as Red Hat is concerned, no one is entitled to use RHEL without paying for it, and they're not shy about letting people know where they stand.""
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IBM: Digging itself in deeper-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Wednesday April 07 2010, @02:29PM

AlexGr writes "Eric Raymond is commenting on how IBM is treating open source:
The original letter [from IBM] to Roger Bowler denying TurboHercules' request for a z/OS licensing program was full of vague threats and ominous language. I said to Jay Maynard at the time that no IBM counsel could possibly have looked at it, because as written it was dripping red meat for antitrust regulators.
Including two patents from the 2005 pledge list in their count of alleged Hercules violations was colossally stupid. With more than 160 other patents to allege, why court a fight with the open-source community over those two?
And now it's compounded by this graceless attempt to nullify the entire pledge, a move which couldn't offend the open-source community more if it were calculated to do so. IBM may be aiming at TurboHercules, but so far it has shot three bullets squarely into its own foot."
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Open Source Start-Up Complains About IBM To EC-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Wednesday March 24 2010, @05:06AM

AlexGr writes "Maureen O'Gara In Open Source Magazine: TurboHercules SAS, the Paris-based concern started last year to commercialize the 10-year-old open source Hercules mainframe project, filed a formal antitrust complaint against IBM with the European Commission Tuesday.
The little company says IBM is blocking it from selling its open source solutions.
TurboHercules last year asked IBM to license z/OS to customers for use with Hercules at prices and on conditions set by IBM provided they were fair and reasonable. That was last July. It took IBM four months to answer. In November IBM's mainframe CTO Mark Anzani rejected the request and accused Hercules of infringing IBM's intellectual property."
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IBM faces mainframe biz European antitrust probe-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Tuesday March 23 2010, @11:42AM

AlexGr writes "From The Register: IBM faces yet another antitrust headache today, after French mainframe open source outfit TurboHercules filed a complaint with European competition watchdogs. TurboHercules has accused Big Blue of denying customers the right to run IBM's mainframe operating system on anything other than IBM iron.
"IBM is preventing customers from using Hercules by tying IBM's mainframe operating system with IBM hardware. This conduct prevents TurboHercules from providing its product to mainframe customers desiring an open-source solution," said Roger Bowler, creator of Hercules and Co-founder of TurboHercules."
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Why Choice Matters for Mainframe Customers-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Thursday December 03 2009, @04:50PM

AlexGr writes "The recent news that the US Department of Justice is investigating the IBM mainframe market has resulted in numerous stories and blog posts both for and against the investigation. However, many of the arguments have not addressed the most important question: what do mainframe customers want? OpenMainframe.org has taken a stab at answering this question."
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IBM Turns the Screws on zPrime-> 0

Submitted by AlexGr on Friday November 20 2009, @02:01PM

AlexGr writes "Maureen O'Gara (SYS-CON): IBM System z CTO and resident spook Mark Anzani recently sent an IBM mainframe customer a letter meant to scare it into seeing the boogeyman under its bed and make sure it doesn't use Neon Enterprise Software's zPrime technology to reduce its mainframe costs.
The customer wants to buy IBM's Specialty Engines for its mainframes, the so-called zIIP and zAAP processors that IBM created to accelerate and run DB2 and Java on. IBM doesn't want to fill the order unless the customer promises in writing not to use the chips to run the workloads that the zPrime software can offload to the things. It will save the customer millions of dollars in CP cycles and IBM doesn't like that.
http://in.sys-con.com/node/1196216"
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