IBM Archive

Apple, IBM forge enterprise partnership

Thom Holwerda 2014-07-15 IBM 31 Comments

Apple and IBM have... Entered into a partnership.

The new IBM MobileFirst for iOS solutions will be built in an exclusive collaboration that draws on the distinct strengths of each company: IBM's big data and analytics capabilities, with the power of more than 100,000 IBM industry and domain consultants and software developers behind it, fused with Apple's legendary consumer experience, hardware and software integration and developer platform. The combination will create apps that can transform specific aspects of how businesses and employees work using iPhone and iPad, allowing companies to achieve new levels of efficiency, effectiveness and customer satisfaction - faster and easier than ever before.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of this, so maybe it's simply fitting. In any case, this stuff isn't exactly sexy, but it looks like a great partnership for both companies.

Workplace Microkernel and OS: A Case Study

Thom Holwerda 2013-11-25 IBM 17 Comments

The Ars Technica article on OS/2 mentions, in passing, Workplace OS, the pie-in-the-sky successor to OS/2 IBM was working on. I found this fantastic journal article written by Brett D. Fleisch and Mark Allan A. Co, which goes into this failed project in great detail.

IBM's Microkernel, named Workplace OS microkernel, was the core components of Workplace OS, a portable successor of OS/2. The basic premise of Workplace OS work was: 1) IBM would adopt and improve the CMU Mach 3.0 microkernel for use on PDAs, the desktop, workstations, and massively parallel machines, and 2) that several operating system personalities would execute on the microkernel platform concurrently. This architecture would allow users to switch between applications written for different operating systems while IBM would also benefit by having one common platform for all product lines. The goals of the microkernel and the technical features of design are described in this paper. We also present lessons that may benefit future projects with similar goals.

Also, I get to use the IBM icon!

IBM Donates Symphony to Apache OpenOffice.org Project

Guest post by Debjit 2011-07-15 IBM 16 Comments

"After most of the developers and Linux distributions deserted them for LibreOffice, Oracle donated OpenOffice.org to the Apache Software Foundation. IBM has surprisingly thrown its weight behind OpenOffice.org in the OpenOffice.org vs LibreOffice fight. Tomorrow IBM will announce the donation of the source code of their free office suite - IBM Lotus Symphony - to the Apache OpenOffice.org."

IBM Turns 100 Today

Submitted by poundsmack 2011-06-16 IBM 16 Comments

"Today International Business Machines celebrated a relative rarity in the tech business - its one hundredth anniversary. By contrast Google is a mere 12 years old, Apple is 35, Microsoft is 36, and Hewlett-Packard is 72 years old." One of the most important companies in the computer industry. Congratulations, IBM, on to the next century! And we get to use our IBM logo for once. Yay!

IBM’s Million Dollar CPU Is the Fastest in the World

Thom Holwerda 2010-08-26 IBM 49 Comments

At the Hot Chips 2010 conference, IBM announced their upcoming z196 CPU, which is really, really fast. How fast? Fastest chip in the world fast. Intended for Z-series mainframe computers, the Z196 has a clock speed of 5.2GHz. Measuring just 512 square millimeters, the Z196 is fabricated on 45nm PD SOI technology, and on its surface contains almost one and a half billion transistors. My... Processor is bigger than yours.

IBM opens up beta for AIX 7

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-07-15 IBM 13 Comments

For only the second time since Big Blue entered the Unix market for real in February 1990 with the launch of the RS/6000 line of workstations and servers, the company is letting customers who use its Power-based servers take a future AIX release for a test drive in an open beta program

IBM Moving to Firefox

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-07-05 IBM 10 Comments

Bob Sutor, Vice President of Open Source and Linux at IBM confirmed on his blog that the entire IBM company is moving to Firefox as its default browser. Though it seems like various users in the company have been able to use Firefox for quite some time, it looks like now they're going to be encouraging everyone to use it, and all new computers will be provisioned with Firefox as the default. Sutor has plenty of glowing praise for the open source browser in his blog post.

IBM Ships Servers Equipped with NVIDIA GPUs

Thom Holwerda 2010-05-19 IBM 2 Comments

IBM has updated its System x iDataPlex servers to include graphics processors from Nvidia. The new servers are aimed at organizations that want to run scientific and commercial applications on graphics processors.

IBM Prunes Low-Cost AIX Rev

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-04-18 IBM 4 Comments

"IBM has radically improved the bang for the buck on its Power7-based Power Systems 701 and 702 blade servers this week, and is expected to soon deliver similarly priced entry rack and tower servers. And now it has a new, lower-cost AIX 6.1 Express Edition that will match the less expensive hardware and therefore help Big Blue's AIX platform better compete against Windows, Linux, HP-UX, and Solaris alternatives. The new AIX Express Edition takes the special low-cost pricing that was available only on JS series blade servers and now makes it available across the Power Systems line, including logical partitions on the largest Power 595 (and before too long Power 595) servers."

Porting Open Source Projects to z/OS UNIX

Thom Holwerda 2010-04-14 IBM 21 Comments

This article describes a real-word software port, with examples of how various porting challenges are resolved. If you are a software developer porting software to UNIX, you will find these techniques invaluable in avoiding common pitfalls, resolving bugs, and improving your productivity.

IBM Breaks Open Source Patent Pledge

Thom Holwerda 2010-04-06 IBM 99 Comments

And thus our true colours reveal. IBM made a patent pledge in 2005, promising not to sue open source projects over a list of 500 patents the computer giant holds. Today, however, IBM has threatened to sue TurboHercules, a French open source software house which provides support for the Hercules open source s390 mainframe emulator. Some of the patents in question are on the 500 list.

Power7: Big Blue Eye on UNIX

Thom Holwerda 2010-02-08 IBM 14 Comments

"The scuttlebutt is that IBM seemed perfectly content to wait until May to launch the Power7-based Power Systems servers, but something changed and compelled the company to move up the announcement of its first machines using the eight-core processor to today. Big Blue is not in a habit of explaining its motives or its timing for product launches, but it seems clear that IBM wanted to get out in front of a whole lot of processor and systems launches that are expected between now and the summer."

IBM Shows off Power7 HPC Monster

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-27 IBM 27 Comments

"IBM likes to go on and on about the transaction processing power and I/O bandwidth of its System z mainframes, but now there is a new and much bigger kid on the block. Its name is the Power Systems IH supercomputing node, based on the company's forthcoming Power7 processors and a new homegrown switching system that blends optical and copper interconnects. The Power7 IH node was on display at the SC09 supercomputer trade show last week in Portland, Oregon, and El Reg was on hand to get the scoop from the techies who designed the iron. This server node is the heart of the 20 petaflop 'Blue Waters' supercomputer being installed at the University of Illinois."

IBM Halts Future Cell Development

Thom Holwerda 2009-11-20 IBM 49 Comments

German website Heise Online has received confirmation that IBM is terminating its Cell processor line. This means that no future development will take place, making the PoweXCell 8i the last Cell processor. Parts of the Cell project will still make it into future processor designs, however.

IBM, Canonical Pitch Ubuntu, Cloud Package at US Firms

Thom Holwerda 2009-10-20 IBM 5 Comments

"With the imminent release of Windows 7, IBM and Canonical are clasping hands to sell an Ubuntu Linux- and Lotus-based desktop package to US businesses targeting low-end PCs and netbooks. The duo initially launched their Ubuntu-powered IBM Client for Smart Work desktop bundle to Africa back in September. But IBM said it decided to swing the offering State-side due to demand from its partners."

The History of the ThinkPad Name

Thom Holwerda 2009-10-02 IBM 35 Comments

What laptop is the most loved, and maybe the most famous laptop in the world? Which laptop went into space? Which laptop won over 300 design awards? I'm sure many of you will be thinking of something made by Apple, but the truth of the matter is that we're talking about something else: IBM's ThinkPad. You might wonder, where does that name come from?

IBM Forcing All Employees to Stop Using Microsoft Office

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-09-17 IBM 35 Comments

"Quoting an inside source, the German economic newspaper, 'Handelsblatt' reports that staff at IBM have been given ten days to change to Symphony, IBM's in-house Lotus software. The use of Microsoft Office will in future require managerial approval. With immediate affect, the Open Document Format (ODF) will rule at IBM with the file ending .doc soon belonging to the past... IBM's management have obviously decided to practice what they preach. 330,000 IBM workers already use Symphony, reports the newspaper. The motive for the migration appears not to be the saving of license fees, and according to an IBM press officer, the move is a clear statement in appreciation of open source standards."

IBM Lifts Veil on Power7 Chips

Thom Holwerda 2009-07-21 IBM No Comments

With every new server processor generation, there is always the possibility that the chip and its associated chipsets and system components are so different that both the chip and the server platform have to change at the same time. This will not be the case for the Power7 processors due next year, says IBM.

Report: IBM Researcher Says Moore’s Law at End

Thom Holwerda 2009-04-10 IBM 18 Comments

"Moore's Law is maxing out. This is an oft-made prediction in the computer industry. The latest to chime in is an IBM fellow, according to a report. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore predicted in 1965 that the number of transistors on a microprocessor would double approximately every two years - a prediction that has proved to be remarkably resilient. But IBM Fellow Carl Anderson, who researches server computer design at IBM, claims the end of the era of Moore's Law is nigh, according to a report in EE Times. Exponential growth in every industry eventually has to come to an end, according Anderson, who cited railroads and speed increases in the aircraft industry, the report said.

Linux High-Performance Computing off the Shelf

Thom Holwerda 2009-03-30 IBM 2 Comments

The year 2008 will forever be remembered as the year of the off-the-shelf (OTS) supercomputer, thanks to the Los Alamos National Labs (LANL) and IBM team that constructed the world's first machine (Roadrunner) to break the peta-FLOP (1,000,000,000,000,000 floating-point operations per second) barrier. Get an overview of OTS strategies to architect high-performance computing (HPC) systems as well as the methods and concepts behind building HPC systems from OTS components and open source software.