i5/OS V6R1: The TIMI, It Is A-Changing
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

By their very nature, technology transitions are difficult. There were many brilliant things about the design of the System/38 and AS/400 minicomputers that are the ancestors of today's System i platform, but perhaps the most important one is that IBM wove a technology-independent machine interface (TIMI) between the operating system and the underlying hardware. This has made changing the OS layer or the hardware layer a lot easier than is the case with other platforms. But sometimes, the hardware changes so much that even TIMI needs to change. Such is the case with the forthcoming i5/OS V6R1. READ MORE >

Solaris Coming to the System i?
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Many things in the IT world have achieved the status of being zealously supported by a community of companies and users. The OS/400 and i5/OS platform won the minicomputer wars in the 1990s and is staunchly supported by its community. And so is the Solaris variant of the Unix operating system, which achieved zealot status during the dot-com boom, and being the first major Unix to go open source with the Solaris 10 launch more than two years ago only reinforced the zeal. And that is why IBM, Sun Microsystems' long-time rival in the server space, last week announced that it has forged a reseller agreement with Sun. READ MORE >

The System i Gets Price Changes and Withdrawals
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

The prelude to a new hardware platform and operating system release is often a time when server makers start rejiggering their prices and giving customers the head's up that upgrades from older technology to relatively new equipment (soon to be displaced, however) are going to be removed from the product catalog at some future date. And so it is with the System i product line this summer. READ MORE >

As I See It: Of Toads and Time
by Victor Rozek

Mark Twain, a man who could find humor in the heartbreak of psoriasis, once offered a simple formula for getting through the day. If the first thing you do each morning is eat a live frog, Twain opined, you can be pretty certain it will be the worst thing that happens to you all day. READ MORE >