Leverage Tivoli's Sales Kits on PartnerWorld to identify new z solution areas for your clients and to leverage sales resources.  Sales Kits include client presentations, whitepapers, sales information like Target Audience and key product benefits, along with links to education and other information.

• Summary of the key software announcements and how they strengthen our portfolio
• New offerings in Batch modernization and business rules modernization
• Update of zEnterprise installations and zBX.

Did you know that there is a system z play book available that contains all the latest offers and pricing incentives for each geography?  The play book will cover offers in areas such as:

• Solution Edition offerings
• New Workload offerings
• Software brand offerings

Check out the latest analyst reports regarding zEnterprise

• Gartner:  Changes in IBM Mainframe Pricing and Terms and Conditions Will Impact End Users
• Gartner:  MIPS Rating for IBM's zEnterprise 196 Processors
  
• Gartner:  IBM zEnterprise Offers Performance, Capacity and Cross-Platform Management
  
• Forrester: zEnterprise Should Change The Role Of The Mainframe In Application Strategy Decisions
  

STG Lab Services is announcing a new 1-day zEnterprise introductory course for customers, IBMers and Business Partners.   

This course is designed to provide a technical introduction to the new IBM z Enterprise System (z Enterprise).The z Enterprise now makes it possible to deploy an integrated hardware platform that brings mainframe and distributed technologies together. This course will discuss the main components that make up this platform: the IBM zEnterprise 196 (z196), IBM zEnterprise BladeCenter Extension (zBX), and the IBM zEnterprise Unified Resource Manager. It will describe and explain new functions, terminology and concepts such as nodes, ensembles, intranode management network, OSX, OSM, zDAC, IBM Smart Analytics Optimizer, and more.
 

• Wildfire Workshops: various locations
• System z Technical University:  October 4-8 (Boston, MA)
• Smarter Systems Executive Summit  - October 20 - 22 (Pinehurst, NC)
  
• Information On Demand:  October 24-28 (Las Vegas, NV)

Visit the System z Software Learning path on PartnerWorld.  This learning path designed for System z Business Partners contains activities which fall into three primary categories: mandatory learning, optional learning and specialty learning. Mandatory learning is required to participate in the TCI for System z Software channels program.

Optional learning will help improve your skills and success. Specialty learning will deepen your knowledge of our System z Software brand solutions, and successful completion of the brand sales mastery tests is required in order to maximize the discounts one receives on System z OTC tools.

There is also a section entitled 'Hot new learning', where new highly-recommended learning material will be posted as appropriate.

Hot New Learning for the month of October

• zEnterprise enablement deliverables web page for new, highly-recommended learning material on the IBM zEnterprise System... the world's fastest and most scalable enterprise system delivering a new dimension in computing.

• zSoftware whiteboard sales training web page - The Right Fit for Purpose whiteboard was designed to allow you to have an initial conversation with a client executive about their applications and the considerations in selecting the best platform for execution. The goal is for the client to agree to the challenges they face, the considerations, their importance, and the need to explore them further with the appropriate technical experts. It is not about delivering this via a whiteboard...you could deliver it in any form, preferably a casual conversation with the client.
  

Open to Business Partners, customers and IBMers

Achieve a higher ROI on predictive analytics with IBM SPSS z
Broadcast date: October 5, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 p.m. UTC / GMT
As predictive analytics becomes critical to optimizing key processes, implementing them in a robust infrastructure is essential. Join us for this complimentary webcast and learn how implementing IBM SPSS predictive analytic solutions on System z® gives you a scalable, secure, reliable infrastructure ideal for consistent service delivery and effective use of resources. In this session, we’ll share an overview of the capabilities now available for System z customers and tips on how to maximize this powerful environment. See how a System z infrastructure makes it easier and more cost-effective to deploy analytic solutions to more users and spread the advantages of predictive intelligence across your organization.
click here to register

Transaction processing problem identification and analysis is easier than ever
Broadcast date: October 12, 2010, 11 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 p.m. UTC / GMT
Please join us for this complimentary teleconference for an early look at a new tool, the Transaction Analysis Workbench. Working with other IBM tools, it allows you to analyze transaction performance and behavioral problems by providing a platform for investigating logs and other historical data collected during transaction processing and system operations. The workbench enables the “first responder” to a problem to determine the most likely source of the problem, even if that person is not an expert in all subsystems that the transaction uses. Once the suspect area has been identified, it helps the subject matter expert take a deep dive into resolving the problem using the workbench and subsystem-specific tools in a synergistic fashion.
click here to register

DB2 10 for z/OS: Savings right out of the box
Broadcast date: October 19, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 p.m. UTC / GMT.  
Join us for this complimentary webcast, which includes IBM experts as well as two guest speakers, and learn how quickly and easily you can take advantage of DB2 10 enhancements. Julian Stuhler, Principal, Triton Consulting will kick off the webcast with a discussion of some the current IT and business challenges he’s finding in organizations. IBM’s Rick Bowers, DB2 for z/OS Director, will provide a brief overview of DB2 10 and how it can help address some of these challenges. Also joining the webcast is a DB2 10 Beta Customer, Global Financial Services Provider, who will share some of their experiences of DB2 10 Beta.
click here to register
Fast enterprise application development and maintenance for less cost
Broadcast date: October 27, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 p.m. UTC / GMT
Please attend a complimentary one-hour webcast to learn how Enterprise Modernization solutions from IBM Rational® can help simplify development and delivery of multiplatform applications that span z/OS®, Linux® on System z®, AIX® on POWER® and Linux on System x® under a single management domain — thereby reducing the costs that drain IT budgets. In this session, you’ll learn how to leverage existing investments with the Rational software development platform. It offers developers an integrated set of tools, best practices and workbenches to overcome cross-platform development challenges, including capabilities to revitalize applications, empower developers, unify teams and exploit the new zEnterprise™ infrastructure.
click here to register

Monitoring Options in OMEGAMON XE for Messaging
Broadcast date: October 7, 2010 at 11:00 Eastern Daylight Time, 3:00 p.m. UTC / GMT
Join us for this complimentary teleconference to learn about the variety of options available when setting up monitoring for WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Message Broker. Data is monitored through many settings including configuration settings in OMEGAMON and settings at the Message Broker or MQ Queue Manager — while some data is sampled in the background and other is on-demand. This session will review different aspects of these options so that you can make the best decisions on which monitoring you want, and which data you want to record historically.
click here to register