mainframe

A new exhibit that was two years and $19 million in the making opened at the Computer History Museum today, and if you have even a passing interest in technology (That's everyone, right?) you need to head to Silicon Valley and check it out.

Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing is the name of the exhibit that contains thousands of products that track our obsession with creating machines to expand or augment human intelligence and capabilities. The abacus? Check. An original Apple I computer? Check. A working PDP-1 that you can actually play the first video game, … Read more

I'll bet that, until November 10, you'd never heard of a company called Bus-Tech. Now that EMC has made Bus-Tech yet another acquisition target, you're wondering why. In a statement Wednesday, Frank Slootman, president of EMC's Backup Recovery Systems division, positioned Bus-Tech in mainframe backup and recovery: "The addition of Bus-Tech will enable us to deliver a suite of next-generation mainframe backup products that are highly differentiated in terms of performance, integration and supportability."

Since its founding in 1987, Bus-Tech has occupied a place in mainframe channel protocol conversion--a relatively small niche. Now Bus-Tech … Read more

The European Commission on Monday launched two formal antitrust investigations against IBM over two alleged infringements of EU antitrust rules about abusing a dominant market position, the commission said in a statement (PDF).

The first case is in response to complaints by software vendors T3 and Turbo Hercules over the tying of mainframe hardware to the mainframe operating system. The second is an investigation launched by the commission itself over alleged discrimination toward competing suppliers of mainframe maintenance services, the commission said.

IBM said the claims, which the company said were the result of a campaign of competitors led by … Read more

IBM on Thursday will unveil a new hybrid mainframe design that aims to cut data center sprawl and be a bridge to other systems.

All of the hardware giants--IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco Systems, Dell and Oracle--are producing magic boxes (or armies of them) to modernize data centers and bridge them to cloud computing. IBM is aiming its hybrid mainframe, which is designed to manage other systems too, at the data center simplification effort.

The lead-in to IBM's zEnterprise System was interesting as rivals were pooh-poohing the effort before the launch. IBM CFO Mark Loughridge foreshadowed the mainframe launch during the … Read more

At least no one can accuse IBM of playing favorites when it comes to open source.

IBM, a longtime defender and advocate of open-source software, took a shot over the bow of the open-source community in March when it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company behind the OpenHercules open-source project.

Has Dr. Jekyll IBM just met its Mr. Hyde?

On March 11, 2010, Mark Anzani, vice president and chief technology officer within IBM's System z business unit, sent TurboHercules a letter asserting its patents against the OpenHercules open-source project. In it Anzani expresses surprise that TurboHercules wouldn't … Read more

Back in May of this year, CA introduced Mainframe Software Manager (MSM) to its mainframe customers and in a way, to the world of mainframe computing. MSM is for CA's mainframe administrators what a software install wizard is for the rest of us. It greatly simplifies the process of installing and updating CA's one hundred and sixty-odd IBM mainframe software titles. And, like install wizards that come with shrink-wrapped software, it's free.

A free install wizard, and for the mainframe of all things. What a concept.

So now that MSM has been out there in big iron … Read more

There's been a general outcry lately about how vendor marketing organizations are abusing the cloud by force-fitting many new and existing products into the cloud computing mold.

Still, some cloud-like things actually do fit without the aid of a crow bar. A case in point is IBM's Smart Analytics Cloud.

The Smart Analytics Cloud is a solution set and reference model based on an IBM-internal Business Intelligence (BI) project code-named Blue Insight, which IBM claims to be the largest private cloud built to date. Blue insight has allowed IBM to eliminate multiple BI systems that were all performing … Read more

Unisys has updated its ClearPath line of mainframe servers, adding a new ePortal engine that allows iPhone users to access applications running on mainframes.

The five new ClearPath Libra and Dorado models introduced on Tuesday range from entry level to high end, the company said. The machines use new chips and I/O subsystems designed to provide performance improvements. The Libra 780 and Libra 790 use Unisys' proprietary CMOS processors, as do the Dorado 740 and 750. The lower-end Dorado 4050 uses an Intel Xeon x64 chip.

The company also released new versions of its MCP and OS 2200 operating … Read more

Microsoft takes a lot of grief for its stance on Linux, while IBM gets a lot of credit. Extending from that, the industry tends to view IBM as a paragon of open-source virtue while Microsoft plays the role of villain.

It struck me today, however, that these roles are, to a certain degree, accidents of history, and not founded in any genetic predisposition in either company to love or hate open source.

Microsoft has fought Linux almost from its inception, but this makes a great deal of sense: Microsoft Windows competes directly with Linux on servers, personal computers, and mobile. … Read more