Recent Vendor Briefing Highlights: IBM’s Cast Iron Acquisition

We are publishing recent vendor highlights on the SMB Group web site. As time permits, we discuss our key take-aways from more interesting briefings. I will try to remember to post them here as well. Here is the most recent one.
Highlights:
In May of this year, IBM acquired Cast Iron Systems (for an undisclosed sum) to help [...]

IBM’s Cast Iron Acquisition (6-17-10)

Highlights:
In May of this year, IBM acquired Cast Iron Systems (for an undisclosed sum) to help customers more effectively tackle the challenges of integrating cloud and on-premise solutions. Cast Iron, which was founded in 2001 and has 75 employees, provides hundreds of pre-built templates and a “configuration, not coding” approach to help streamline and shorten [...]

Does IBM Lotus Really Want to Get Small? My Take on Brent Leary’s Podcast

I still haven’t had time to write about Lotusphere 2010, but in the meantime, you may want to listen to the conversation I had with small business guru and friend Brent Leary. Last week, Brent interviewed me about my take on this year’s Lotus event, announcements and news.
Naturally, our conversation centered on the small business angle, which [...]

Standing Out in a Sea of Green IT: IBM’s Scalable Modular Data Centers for Midsize Companies

As a follow up to my post What Is Green IT and Why Should You Care?, I had the opportunity to talk with Steve Sams, VP for IBM’s Global Site and Facilities Services, along with several other members of IBM’s green team. As part of its Smarter Planet mission, IBM is active on all fronts [...]

What Is Green IT, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published in Small Business Computing, December 29, 2009)
Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of [...]

Top Takeaways from IBM’s General Business Influencer Summit

Last week, I attended IBM’s General Business (GB) Influencer Summit for analysts covering the mid-market (companies with 100 to 1000 employees and larger enterprises that are not currently spending a lot with IBM, sometimes termed “white space” accounts). I’ve attended this event since IBM began holding them a few years back. IBM recently [...]

What’s a Business App Appliance, and Why Should You Care?

(Originally published June 18, 2009 in Small Business Computing)
Technology insiders tend to throw around technical terms and business jargon, assuming people outside the industry understand what it all means. By its nature, technology vocabulary is often confusing and complicated, and insiders often add to the confusion by over-complicating things. To help add a sense of clarity [...]

IBM Lotus Foundations: A Real Choice for Small Businesses and Partners

As I mentioned in a blog I posted after Lotusphere 2009, IBM Lotus has been reluctant to go head to head with obvious rivals, particularly Microsoft. At Lotusphere, however, the company came out swinging, declaring intentions “shatter Windows” and “change desktop economics” with Symphony, the free Lotus desktop suite, and compete aggressively against Microsoft Small [...]

Can Standards Clear the Clouds?

With market adoption of cloud computing forecast to skyrocket, no one in the tech industry wants to be left on the ground. But, as cloud computing platforms, models and definitions multiply, they’re becoming as numerous and diverse as Mother Nature’s clouds—and just as easy for customers to get lost in.
Last week, Ben Worthen blogged in [...]

IBM Dynamic Infrastructure Announcement and the Mid-Market Enterprise

With today’s ‘Dynamic Infrastructure’ initiative announcement, IBM is positioning itself as a holistic technology solution and service provider and partner. It combines all the element of separate cloud delivered services (cloud based, managed, and on-premise) and also traditional on-premise hardware, software and services.

Managed Services

Cloud Computing

Software-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Traditional on-premise based software, hardware and service

If IBM [...]