By Charles King, Pund-IT®  May 10, 2023

Environmental, social and governance (ESG) programs have become lightning rods for everything from climate change deniers to activists railing against “woke” political correctness. However, while the need for ESG may be beyond the comprehension of some, the value of these programs continues to grow and become deeply established.

During a recent analyst briefing, Cassandra Garber, VP of Dell Technologies’ ESG organization and members of her team provided an overview of the company’s ESG strategies and programs. Dell’s sustainable approach offers a template for how other organizations can effectively consider and implement their own ESG efforts. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  May 3, 2023

“Scalability” is a commonplace concept among IT vendors and enterprise customers, but the means they use to achieve scalable performance have changed significantly over time. Not all that long ago, companies purchased more IT assets than they immediately required and then “grew into them.”

Over time, vendors began offering new solutions, such as capacity on-demand which allows customers to enable dormant processors in scalable servers to address long-term business growth or short-term compute capacity requirements. Today, cloud-based as-a-service (aaS) offerings help companies ensure that they have the means to address their most important needs.

That said, the value of scalability impacts less physical but still existential challenges, including how organizations detect, analyze and respond to growing cyber threats and attacks. The recently announced IBM Security QRadar Suite offers an excellent example of how a vendor can help enterprise customers successfully address such problems. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  April 19, 2023

For decades, discussions about enterprise IT solutions like IBM’s zSystems have usually encompassed enterprise data center environments and issues. In many cases, that is entirely sensible since IBM zSystems tend to inhabit the crème de la crème of global enterprise IT environments, including most of the world’s largest banks, best known retailers, most significant healthcare organizations and countless government organizations and agencies.

However, the new single frame and rack mount z16 and LinuxONE 4 solutions that the company recently announced are taking IBM’s signature enterprise platforms into new realms and potentially valuable commercial opportunities. Let’s consider more closely what IBM is doing. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  April 5, 2023

Public cloud computing is arguably one of the most transformative business technologies of the past decade. However, hyperscale public cloud platforms are seldom sufficient for supporting all computing needs for enterprises and other large organizations. Plus, using such services can involve considerable challenges, including unpredictable operating expenditures (OPEX), API call charges, data egress fees and other nebulous or hidden costs.

That said, some hybrid cloud vendors are intent on making cloud services and solutions significantly cheaper and more transparent for customers. The new hybrid cloud storage offerings announced by IBM Cloud and Wasabi are a good example of how vendors are delivering on this promise. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  April 5, 2023

Commercial client PCs, laptops, 2-in-1s and All-In-Ones (AIOs) have improved and revolutionized modern businesses and industries. As a result of their adoption and deployment, these devices helped organizations vastly enhance productivity and performance and enabled them to explore new markets and business opportunities.

Perhaps most importantly, client technologies helped companies flexibly adjust to the unexpected tumult of the Covid-19 pandemic, and to continue delivering the goods and services their customers and partners depend on even while substantial numbers of employees worked remotely. That technology-inspired flexibility also led to sometimes subtle, sometimes stark cultural adjustments for many organizations, resulting in the permanent adoption of working from home (WFH) and similar processes.

Supporting these elemental changes and helping customers consider other flexible work strategies and functions is evident in the new Latitude, Precision and OptiPlex client solutions announced recently by Dell. Let’s consider the announcement more closely. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  March 22, 2023

The technology industry likes to consider itself a fount of innovation for addressing big, real-world problems. But high-tech companies, the media and consumers often focus much of their time and attention on the latest shiny new objects, click-bait headlines and attention-capturing services.

That said, some vendors are investing significant financial and human resources in tackling serious, often seemingly intractable issues affecting millions or billions of people. IBM’s Sustainability Accelerator is one such effort and the company’s recent announcement that it is accepting proposals for water management solutions is worthy of close examination. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT® March 15, 2023

The concept of resiliency has a long history in enterprise IT as a measure of how data center components withstand and recover from system failures, power outages and other problems and disasters. However, fundamental changes in how organizations do business have resulted in companies depending increasingly on highly distributed IT environments with inherent weaknesses and risks.

In those circumstances, IT assets, including client endpoints, can be potential doorways into the larger business. That, in turn, creates opportunities for new threats, such as being targeted by cyber criminals. The security solutions and services announced this week by Dell Technologies are designed to help businesses resiliently survive and succeed in an increasingly insecure world. Continue reading →

By Charles King, Pund-IT®  March 8, 2023

The evolution of edge computing solutions and services has followed a path similar to those of other business and industrial technologies. In essence, IT vendors and business solution partners, such as independent software vendors (ISVs) create platforms that can effectively collect, process and analyze complex data, thus improving process and equipment management and business decision making.

Similarly, edge vendors begin with solutions focused on large and complex jobs, then work their way toward smaller or more targeted processes. Though these functions are still vital to customers, they carry challenges that both unique and difficult for many organizations to manage. The new Lenovo ThinkEdge servers, Lenovo Open Cloud Automation (LOC-A 2.6) and Lenovo XClarity enhancements the company announced at the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) show in Barcelona are good examples of how a vendor can help customers and partners overcome those challenges. Continue reading →