Happy Holidays From IT Jungle

The weather may not know it in most of the Northern Hemisphere, but the holiday season will soon be fast upon us and that means it is time to put away the pens and keyboards here at IT Jungle and to spend some time with family and friends.

The Four Hundred has been a part of the IBM midrange community almost as long as the AS/400 and its progeny have been around, and like the AS/400 itself, The Four Hundred has antecedents that have an even longer history. The point is, we have been listening and learning about the IBM midrange, both individually and collectively as a team, for a very long time, and it is truly our pleasure to be a part of this community and serve its needs for information and insight. This is a unique platform, starting with the System/3 way back in 1969, and frankly one that has demonstrated longevity that surpasses its peers. Windows and Linux have a long way to go before they match the narrative of the System/3X. And we suspect they, too, will have long histories in the annals of information technology, as will other future platforms yet unthought.

But for now, we are in the present, and the IBM i platform is still vibrant, still doing useful work, and still a part of the background hum of information that makes an economy and a culture go. And we are glad to be a part of that.

We are thankful, as always, for the sponsors who have supported our publications this year and in years past and whose funds make it possible for us to do the work we do. We are grateful that IBM is trying to expand its Power Systems base and is opening up Power technologies to see them spread wider into the market, and we only hope that Big Blue brings IBM i along for the ride and helps expand its base and, more importantly, enables its more widespread use among the customers who already know and love the platform. And, we are of course most grateful to our readers, who we serve directly with the publications we produce. It is for them that we, our sponsors, and even IBM come together to serve, ultimately.

With that, we wish you all a happy holiday season and we will see you in 2016!