If you did not get the chance to read the article about the 2009 APICS Conference, I thought I should share with you some of the things we (Khudsiya and I) did or learned there.

I thought I would start by imagining a conversation about imaginary analysts, between two imaginary people, in an imaginary kitchen of an imaginary company: Read the rest of this entry »

A few months ago while I was listening to Dassault Systèmes (DS) executives explaining the company’s sales and marketing strategies and achievements, I wondered what the next move might be since I found the relationship between DS and IBM was becoming more delicate than before. My concern was that a very sophisticated approach would be required in order to grow DS’s own sales capability, while keeping the strong and long-time DS/IBM partnership in good shape. Here’s the answer to my question: a press release from DS on October 26 tells us that “Dassault Systèmes and IBM Announce Intent to Integrate IBM PLM Sales Operation into DS.” Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this month, TEC analyst Aleksey Osintsev posted a short piece about the perceived shortcomings of the venerable IBM AS/400 (now the IBM System i). It seems he touched a nerve with the platform’s defenders, who were quick to offer an opposing view in the post’s comments.

The general consensus was that, while it isn’t mainstream, the AS/400 is alive and well. Unfortunately, our commenters say, many system administrators haven’t kept up to date with new technologies, creating the perception that the AS/400 is an obsolete, or at least “vintage” system.

“We’ll get onto a 20 or 40 year old elevator without a second thought, or a 20 or 40 year old air plane,” said one reader, “but when it comes to information technology there is this myth that old is no longer viable.”

According to the experts in our audience, the truth is that, when properly updated, the AS/400 is a reliable workhorse that provides all of the functionality of modern tier-1 systems, and requires far fewer resources to support and maintain. Its age is simply not an issue.

So what do you think? Is newer necessarily better? Is your company still getting tier-1 performance out of “vintage” systems?

Let us know in the comments.

Many midsized companies have to deal with a very particular problem: the need of a true business intelligence (BI) solution, while having to select and deploy one within a tight budget. On September 29, 2009, IBM Cognos announced the launch of Cognos Express, a new product specially designed to meet the needs of the midsized market. Of course, here at TEC, we took the time to give it a try. We downloaded the trial, and got our hands on this brand new BI tool.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s general session showcased people from around the world (Mexico, China, Italy, South Africa, Poland, India, Egypt, US, etc.) and their stories about what work in manufacturing and supply chain means to them. The idea behind this was to show us how supply chain concepts are being embraced worldwide—and the presenters did it by showing media clips and images from different continents. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, IBM gave me a sneak peek of its new business analytics software tool for midsized clients. The name of the new product is Cognos Express, and IBM’s press release says it’s an “all-in-one business intelligence and planning solution designed specifically for midsized clients.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Public Clouds and Hybrid Clouds,
Private Clouds and Fluffy Clouds?

That was the first thought that came to mind after attending this year’s IBM Rational Conference at Orlando’s Walt Disney World. I believe Dr. Danny Sabbah, General Manager of IBM Rational Software, said it best in his keynote presentation to thousands of conference attendees when he stated, “Vision without Execution is Hallucination.” Read the rest of this entry »

Part I of this blog series introduced the concept of complex event processing (CEP) and possible needs for CEP software applications. One such broad CEP platform, Progress Apama, has been offered by Progress Software Coporation after acquiring formerly independent Apama LTD in 2005.

Part II then discussed Apama’s current state of affairs and its real-life deployments at companies outside its traditional stronghold of capital markets and algorithmic trading. So, what makes this product particularly attractive? Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series presented Microsoft’s official position on its recent notable change in business intelligence (BI) product strategy, whereby the company is breaking apart the business performance management (BPM) family of products. To that end, Microsoft will include the monitoring and analytic functionality within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, while seriously backpedaling on (if not completely unplugging) the development of its nascent financial planning & consolidation application. Read the rest of this entry »

If one quickly skims through Sun Microsystem’s newspeak-style press release, its devastating cut to 6,000 jobs, globally, only sounds like a doubleplusungood minor reshuffle. Newsoutlets and investors, however, weren’t fooled, and the announcement caused the troubled company’s shares to plummet to $4.06. At its height, during the dot-com boom, Sun’s shares were worth $250.

For eight years, Sun has been in deep financial troubles, and it hasn’t escaped the global credit crisis—a significant number of its customers are banks. This latest shakeup in has some analysts speculating that Sun will become a “dirt cheap“  acquisition target for larger rivals, such as HP, IBM, or Dell.

While this move is expected to save Sun between $700 million and $800 million annually, it won’t be enough to preserve the company. Sun may still undergo further restructuring, including splitting its software division into three different business units to push its open source business.

Part 2 of this blog topic continued to analyze IBM’s rationale behind acquiring ILOG to bolster its service oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) platforms, in part due to the capabilities of archrival Oracle.

What About ILOG’s SCM Products?

Whether as a sort of “collateral damage” (given IBM’s foremost interest in beefing up its SOA/BPM infrastructure product) or maybe not, the acquisition also leaves IBM with the supply chain management (SCM) applications business that ILOG has recently been developing in pursuit of a more profitable custom solution strategy. This strategy was going to complement ILOG’s tried-and-true “technology & platform” strategy of providing business rules management system (BRMS), optimization engines, and visualization tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog topic analyzed IBM’s rationale to acquire ILOG to bolster its service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) platforms. Eventually, with ILOG fully integrated, IBM hopes to establish the following:

• a leading rule repository and end-to-end rule lifecycle management;
• a full spectrum of rules definition and execution methods;
• maximum rules reuse – across all BPM initiatives, SOA initiatives, applications and modernization efforts; and
• tight integration between IBM WebSphere and ILOG.

In addition, as hinted in Part 1, IBM is expected to leverage ILOG’s presence in optimization and visualization, which are also of relevance to BPM, Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) & analytics, and Complex Event Processing (CEP) opportunities. Read the rest of this entry »

While my two separate blog post series about workflow automation and Business Process Management (BPM) and about the long tails of supply chains were coming to their respective ends, one event that is curiously pertinent to both topics has meanwhile taken place in the market.

Namely, at the end of July 2008, IBM acquired ILOG, a specialized software provider with headquarters in France and the US. Over 3,000 direct corporate customers in over 30 countries currently “make better decisions faster” with ILOG’s technology.

Also, more than 500 independent software vendors (ISV’s) rely on embedding ILOG’s business rule management systems (BRMS), optimization, and visualization software components into their products. These ISV customers, some of which are leaders in their respective markets, embed ILOG’s software engines to create their own differentiating products and services and improve their competitive edge.  Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past couple of years, the electric utility industry has changed in terms of the different software solutions available. The old approach to addressing this industry’s needs was the “best-of-breed” approach, meaning that software vendors were creating solutions addressed to only one group or business unit within the company doing one specific task. Generation, Transmission, and Distribution all had their own specific software packages that were almost never fully integrated with each other. Or, the interfaces were poorly designed, thus creating a lot of data issues and discrepancies.

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This week BMC announced it had secured the purchase of ITM Software, a business management provider. BMC is a publically traded data center automation company that competes directly with CA Inc, HP, and IBM. It’s clients include DELL, Home Depot, and Toyota. Over the past two years, BMC has been busy snapping up different IT companies, such as Proactive Net (June 2007), RealOps (July 2007), and Emprisa Networks (October 2007). It’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Bengal Acquisition Corporation acquired 96.7% interest in BladeLogic. Read the rest of this entry »