this could be blog ... by IBMer

Carly Fiorina naked !!!

2005-06-27T06:11:00.000+02:00

This is a lesson. Success lies in good marketing. I just wanted to pass barrier of 1000 visits ... and since it seems pornography and nudism are most searched web contents ... :-)))

And now back to You. You dirty bastard! Yes you, the reader. You poor pervert! Why would you want to see Carly naked anyway??? -Man, she's 50!!! That's half of century. yuk

:-)

OK, I'm following the "satisfied customer policy" so I'll sell you what you want ... no matter how disscusting that is.

So here's one fake photo (courtesy of http://www.ceoscope.com/carly_fiorina.htm)

Get a life! Don't let all your girlfriends' names end as .jpg

:-)

Apple Would Never Accept Dell's Offer

2005-06-17T09:31:00.000+02:00

hehehe. Just think. Not Think. And not different. (meaning, not as IBM Think and not Apple's Think Different - from their commercials).

Think as Michael Dell.

This would be different end for Jobs. Recently, as Apple switched to Intel processor, announcing end of POWER powered Macs, everyone were guessing if this means, we'll be able to run OS X on our PCs. And Mike Dell smelled a business case. He said to the press that in case Apple will offer OS X for distribution, they'll sell it for sure.

Never say never; but I'd say this will never happen. Success, not to mention stability etc., of Macs lies also in paranoid jealousy of Apple. They are a HW company. And they have to have total control over HW and SW so that it can be integrated together eliminating most of the problems from chaotic PC market.

This also gives them chance for A LOT higher margins than PC world could even dream about. PC-way of doing business would burry Apple in a year or so.

I'm just waiting for first MAC on Intel, to see what we'll get. Don't get price hopes too low, though. ;-)

Who says IBM designs boring products?!?

2005-06-14T23:27:00.000+02:00

MareNostrum - Barcelona IBM supercomputer - PHOTOS

Who says technology isn't art? Where are all those who say IBM designs boring products??? Put your weapons down, 'couse where IBM hits, grass stops growing. :-)

Looking at these photos makes me realise what a jerk I am for persuading my wife not to go to Spain for honeymoon. Sorry, IBM. You're the best, but this is home politics. ;-)

More photos (and photos posted here courtesy of):
Power.org - Photos

I'd probably enjoy this museum more than I did London's National Science Museum. Excuse me, I have to go bang my head to the wall for a few moments now.

:-))

P.S.: thanks to my friend from IBM, for the link. Dziekuje!!!

Intel Inside Apple

2005-06-13T23:11:00.000+02:00

Yes, they switched. And it realy seems IBM didn't know anything about it. Which proves one thing. IBM doesn't give a shit. Apple is only minor part of processor business.

But this move is more of a emotional shock - especialy to all those proud-to-be-Apple-owner fellows. They've been bragging for a long time now, that their boxes don't have those school-calculator-chips inside. They had POWER. Literaly! ;-)

But no longer. In my opinion, it's relatively smart move. For all the parties involved. Intel can celebrate simbolical victory, although their finance guys aren't realy jumping from joy as they don't expect enourmous profits. Apple can be happy, if they realy have a good and stabile OS version for Intel architecture (which I don't doubt). All they have to do is persuade fanatical owners of their perfect boxes, that this is good stuff / that their small soft enemies wont be able to run OS X on 3-times cheaper boxes. IBM can be happy, as it wont have to argue with Apple's empty-pocketed finance people.

Where is this going to lead? Is this one of those major shifts in computing market? Let's not forget, that Apple has just about 4% market share. So it's pretty much so market-shifting as Slovenia's exit from NATO would be to the worlds' geopolitical status. :-))

But it's interesting, though! Not to mention, that far more people heard for this fruit than for Slovenia!

Apple Matters: "http://applematters.com/index.php/trackback/384/"

Want to hear something market shifting??? -Dell moves to POWER!!!

:-)))))))))))))))

IBM & Lenovo produce their first tablet PC - ThinkPad X41 Tablet

2005-06-12T11:40:00.000+02:00

The new Lenovo released it's first notebook - and we can claim that this is also IBM's first Tablet PC. M$ and other tablet-players are probably pretty happy about it, as IBM's entrance to the market usually gives it some sort of business legitimacy and market starts growing.

As this machine is building on success of IBM's X-product line, which means ultra small, ultra light and therefore extremely portable machines, this should be a good starting point for sales: proven technology, design and advantages - just upgraded to a tablet level.

However, don't get overexcited and first think if this sort of machine is appropriate (and needed) for your (business) environment. Some people like to panic and claim that something like this means end of "ordinary notebook computing". No it doesn't. It's just giving users more choice.

I'm looking forward to getting this little baby on test ... till then, check out what CNET is saying:
ThinkPad X41 Tablet review - Notebooks - CNET Reviews

IBM Employee Blogs

2005-06-11T16:32:00.000+02:00

Check out blogs of IBM employees ...

IBM Employee Blogs

The End of Corporate Computing

2005-05-30T20:28:00.000+02:00

Interesting new theory from Nick Carr, author of Does IT matter? - check out the review
MIT SMR Article, "The End of Corporate Computing" - Spring 2005 Nicholas G. Carr. Reprint 46313

"The resulting industry will likely have three major components. At the center will be the IT utilities themselves Â big companies that will maintain core computing resources in central plants and distribute them to end users. Serving the utilities will be a diverse array of component suppliers Â the makers of computers, storage units, networking gear, operating and utility software, and applications. And finally, large network operators will maintain the ultrahigh-capacity data-communication lines needed for the system to work."

Nicholas has his own blog at Roughtype blog

IT doesn't matter is still a book that will make IT managers fight each other. Basically, Carr is stating, that IT itself isn't a competitive advantage - instead, the "old stuff" - good processes, fair-payed people etc. are important. IT is just a new driver for this stuff. He is questioning where the real value of IT is.

From my point of view, I'd agree with Carr. For example, if a corporation has huge investments in IT, but their core business processes aren't healthy, people not motivated ... they'll go down the toilet.

Every IT investment must be well considered - and aligned to the businesprocessesss - to support and act as a good driver toward successfulll business results.

Don't forget, customer satisfaction! :-)

Bill Gates's NEW BOOK

2005-05-22T19:47:00.000+02:00

President Bill is preparing a new book. So he's gonna tell us about the future again. I've read his books before and must say, they were great reading - a must-read for everybody interested in IT and beyond.

Can't realy wait to see what the God-of-Desktop has prepared for us. Check out BW's story:Further Down Bill Gates's Road

I'm realy wondering if and to what extent he'll write about Open Source. And offcourse, where this great visionare will lead us:

If we'd judge future just by His famous sayings, the world would long ago end up like this:

No offence, Billie. We like you. We realy do. Scout's honour. /do I need some counselling?/

Fiorina's first public appearance after being sacked

2005-05-19T15:55:00.000+02:00

Carly has spoken in front of a University graduates,- first time after getting kick-in-the-ass from HP board.

Fiorina's Commencement Address

Carly Breaks Her Silence

This one goes out to the one I love ... :-))

2005-05-18T19:49:00.000+02:00

Fellow IBMer has "accused" me (in joke, offcourse) that I don't believe in iSeries. CRAP!

iSeries, AS/400 is a beast. Very similar to what i-guys from IBM like to compare it: a cheetah.

Fast. Responsive. Ressilient. Adoptive. Self protecting. Self healing. Unfortunately, IBM doesn't find a realy good way to communicate that. To spread the word.

Ever wanted to have one machine capable of running your entire bussiness - from day one, when you're a one-man-band all the way to when you're lucky enought to join the big guys in the enterprise league.

Business solution in a box. You want to run applications in multiple operating systems? -iSeries can do that. -Symultaneously!!! Consolidation? -Not a problem. Logical partitioning? -Sure. iSeries was 64 bit while Bill Gates still thought that 640K of memory should be enough for everybody. :-)

If you're in IT, you're probably like everyone else - thinking how to consolidate your server and storage environment.

Check out the great iSeries Executive overview video:

Come to the real world. Become a player. To "i" or not to "i"? LOL

Pls forgive me

2005-05-18T19:33:00.000+02:00

Just checked my blog today and found out that it's been almost 4 weeks since my last post ... and visitor No. went up to 660 (according to statistics 64% first time visits) ... so readers have been good and I was just lazy. I admit it.

But, to say something in my defence, there was a lot happening in the meantime. I'm still an IBMer, even if my employment record says otherwise. So heart is still Blue (and will remains so).

You're probably asking why. Just one chinese curse-word /IBMers face goes from normal to angry/: LENOVO.

Not going into confidential details, let me just say I stayed with the big stuff. Serving as IBM Ambassador. That's the answer to all of those who were doubting my beliefs as being connected to "not biting the arm that feeds you". :-)

OK, this was a short disclaimer.

iSeries coming back to office

2005-04-21T10:21:00.000+02:00

A renaissance for IBM's iSeries? | CNET News.com

Can IBM's legendary iSeries line be the one to help oust the M$ Office?

According to plans, Workplace initiative should do just that.

Help clients be freed from Office's jailhouse and use productivity software that fits their needs - meaning, not paying for all those features that they are never going to use etc.

If it will match the budgets and get enought of ISV support, it might be a good move.

Does anyone even remember, when there were more office suites to consider? -Yes, people, there were times before M$ office! Now we have just freeware or bloatware ... :-))

IBM's BlueGene broken it's own record!

2005-04-07T16:11:00.000+02:00

IBM's BlueGene Hits Warp Speed

That's a computing beast: 183.5 teraflops!!! The race is continuing, but IBM is a sure winner in the world of supercomputing. By end of decade we can expect a petaflop machine.

For only $2 million, you can have a 6-teraflop IBM BlueGene/L at home. Nice baby for playing 3D-shooters, huh? :-)))

Nice part-time job for 52 days!

2005-04-07T13:22:00.000+02:00

HP's $58,000-a-Day Interim CEO

Sure, this is not a part-time job, but imagine working for 52 days and earning more than you can dream of?

khm, but in the end, you wind up having a blue-ink stain in your CV! :-)

HP with a new Captain

2005-03-30T15:00:00.000+02:00

HP's New Low-Profile Boss: ", calling directly to low-level salesmen to check on deals "

Hope he's got more balls than Carly. :-)

Finally got it: Apple iPod shuffle!

2005-03-16T14:33:00.000+01:00

Fancy little player finally came to my hands. Definitely worth it's 99$. It came packed in a stilysh little green box - and it's funny, how Cuppertino boys are able to make so simple things so fancy. Even this little music player is "insanely great"- you just have to love it.

I'll not write a review, since Cnet guys already did it (Apple iPod Shuffle review by CNET Reviews) and I have to agree with them.

-LCD screen? -I don't need it, as I'm using shuffle mostly in my car - connected through cassette adapter which works perfectly fine.

If you're wondering, which model to buy, here's my view:
- 512 MBs is more than enough to fit your music. That's about 120 songs, which comes to around 8 hours of music! -When will you listen to all that? I myself will cut it to half - 256 megs and leave some space to be used as flash memory.

- I'd recommend 1GB model only to people who want to fill shuffle with a lot of music (which they'll never listen to anyway) at once - and not work on playlists all the time. Also good for users who consider having an 8+ hours of music plus a 512MB of available disk storage.

All in all, iPod shuffle is a great buy. Stylish, small, simple and usable. Just like you'd expect from Apple. Way to go, Steve!!!

Green light and look back at 2004

2005-03-12T11:13:00.000+01:00

Factiva

Commitee on Foreign Investments in the US has finished the review of IBM's sale of PC division to Chinese Lenovo Group. Green light to finish the deal.

IBM Annual Report 2004 released. Big Blue is becoming a $100-billion corporation. Best positioned player in the IT industry. With clear path of Innovation for every clients' success.

What makes Apple's products "insanely great"

2005-03-12T10:24:00.000+01:00

Online Extra: Commentary: Apple's Blueprint for Genius

Research. Understand customer's needs. Teamwork. Think "out of the box". Design. Make it an icon. Only one more ingredient to make it a "wanted dead or alive" product: Steve Jobs.

Does anyone want to be HP CEO?!

2005-03-12T10:12:00.000+01:00

Handicapping the HP Hopefuls

In my opinion, they need a candidate who has guts to take over and fix the mess that's left at HP. And to bring back the pride to demoralised employees, management and the pissed-off stockholders.

It will be a tough job with a lot of sleepless nights. And some mind-shifting decisions to be made. Especially the ever repeating issue: to split or not to split?

Be careful what you write, they just might read it!

2005-03-07T17:33:00.000+01:00

Are Bloggers Journalists?

Lately, we are seeing more and more people losing their jobs and being held responsible for their blog postings.

My advice: take your blogging serious. It's not a game. Respect your contracts and don't spread anything you wouldn't with your company e-mail address.

If you can't help yourself, as being one of those pushed-down-need-to-speak-up employees, make sure you carefuly examine options on staying totaly anonimous. -khm, almost impossible! ;-)

Microsofting me / PART II: Geek in an elegant dark suit

2005-02-24T16:55:00.000+01:00

(Note: this is 2nd part of Micro$ofting me. 1st part: M$ing Me I).

Let's elaborate this one:

I. Geek

Motivated. Driven by an idea he believes in. Being apostol to his idea. Maybe somewhat fanatic about it. Explosive and over-energised. Hyperactive. -Do you get my point?
This is the guy who will get drunk in the evening, share his idea with drinking-buddies and suddendly figure out solution to his biggest business problem. Still drunk, he'll get to work and fix it. In the morning, he'll be hung over, but get an applause for overcoming the barrier.

II. Dark suit

Realistic. Analitic. Well thought-over. Strategical. Thinking in a long haul. Sun-tzu general.
He'll go to the opera or a game of golf after work and use the peaceful environment to think things over. Jot them down. Sleep it over. Repeat the excercise again. After a week, he'll ask for someone's opinion. Finally, he'll decide to communicate it on the next meeting. And he'll show up with well prepared slide show!

I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is (or where my fingers on keyboard are), that this is the winning combination. Maybe not, if you're in one of those boring oil businesses or running your own burial-services company, but for most of businesses that's it.

I've met a lot of sales people in my short life. I met the ones who realy suck and the ones I'm trying to copy. Actualy, sometimes I copy both species - but trying to do the "mirror copy" of the ones that suck. Just look what they do and act totaly oposite. Learn on other peoples' mistakes. ;-)

Yes, I went a bit off the road now. So let's get back to M$. I don't believe they'll ever collapse. They'll stay here just like IBM: forever. But sure, they'll go through some evolutions and transform to adapt to new circumstances. They're this big elephant that's being attacked by thousand mice, just like IBM was once. There's Linux. Unix is still here. Apple is regaining momentum again. New areas of computing. New way of living. It's just a lot of fronts. And they're too big to focus only on one. We'll see what will happen next, but I believe M$ will always stay a big part of our personal computing. Although the only M$ product I realy like and admire is Office. It's just "competitionless".

Let's save this for the next round: Part III. Come back for it soon! :-)

Become a part of science research!

2005-02-23T15:29:00.000+01:00

Most of our computing resources are under-used and as such, they could be "borrowed" for good cause, such as health research. Check out how simple it is to lend your UNUSED computing power to the science.

BBC NEWS Science/Nature: PCs do thousands of years of work

World Community Grid, backed by IBM, is doing huge chunk of scientific work. It has more than 55 thousand members already!

Join today and be one of us good guys who support science in health research. Check WCG's homepage at
World Community Grid.org

Try imagine it this way: while your computer is on and you're not using it, it's actually useful - for YOU! God forbid, but years from now, you might get one of those currently uncurable diseases - and by then, with a help of WCG and Human Proteome Folding project, scientist will already find a way to cure it.
So, by running the WCG agent, you're actualy using your free computing power to help yourself, your family and the humanity. This might sound overreacting, but it's a good point to think about.

It's free. It's painless. It's human. One of those good things backed by IBM. It's WCG.

Carly goes to heaven? :-)

2005-02-21T17:28:00.000+01:00

HP CEO Carly Fiorina dies, and she goes through the usual process of
defending her case in front of the Divine Jury. It is not clear what
happens exactly and where things go wrong, but when the jury comes back
and the sentence is read, it turns out she is admitted into Heaven. So
Carly is filling in the usual paperwork at the HAO's desk (Heaven
Admission Officer): non-disclosure agreement, legal disclaimers,
non-competition clause, etc...

'Congratulations and welcome to Heaven,' finally says the angel. 'Go
down the corridor, first door on your right.'

Carly walks to the door, pushes it open... and staggers back. Through
the flames and behind the door, all you can see are countless devils
inflicting the most horrible tortures to screaming souls. She rushes
back to the Officer and waves her admission pass, breathless. 'Must be
an error, this thing here says Heaven!'

'Oh yeah,' says the angel, barely looking up from his/her screen.
'Forgot to tell you... we merged.'

HP looks beyond Fiorina

2005-02-10T13:26:00.000+01:00

HP looks beyond Fiorina | CNET News.com

Complete with videos. IBM's senior managers get mentioned a lot. I take it as a compliment - IBM has the right leadership. The right way.

Good bye, Carly!

2005-02-10T08:59:00.000+01:00

For a while, everyone was asking themselves about the HP's way. In end of January I wrote that Carly's fail is getting pretty obvious.

Sooner or later, it had to touch the Board and according to HP press release Carleton S. Fiorina was fired.

They put a picture with a word "Change" on their website

Analysts, stockholders, The (Wall) Street and others are already wondering if this means that possibility of breaking the company appart is the next step. One of the strongest Players urging for the big split is Steven Milunovich of Merrill Lynch (ML to HP: Time for a breakup).

This scenario is on the table - month after month. BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin is wondering if Anyone can save HP. As possible saviors we hear the names of Michael Capellas (former Compaq CEO) and even John Joyce, chief of IBM Global Services.

I agree with Ben: they'll need someone like Lou Gerstner, who "saved" IBM in the 90's, 'couse they're deep in shit, almost as IBM was in those dark 90's.

Separate i-B (ink-Business) from HP and we'll see what's left. As I wrote before, they'll have to regroup their troops (or what's left of them) and reposition themselves. Trying to conquer the Big ones (corporate market) and Small fishes (consumer market) at the same time obviously doesn't work. At least not for them. As some say, they are just loosing their focus.

BusinessWeek has a story called Where Fiorina went wrong - Walter Hewlett is probably a bit satisfied now - you know, that feeling when you can say to somebody:"I warned you." :-)

If interested, make sure you don't miss BW's The inside story of Carly's ouster!
"HEAVY BLOW. By November of 2004, HP's directors began holding periodic conference calls -- without Fiorina -- to discuss their CEO's performance. "

@ Carly: so long and enjoy your $21 mio+!

I admire her for being such a strong player in the "men's world" of IT. She certainly had some good ideas, but I'm pretty sure Compaq merger wasn't one of them. Let's wait and see what happens next - will there still be one or we'll get more "little" HP's.

e-business is the game. Play to win.

Well, a least now I can use this picture I found on web some time ago: