NAViGATE, inPower 2025 On Tap for September 2025
September 15, 2025 Alex Woodie
As the summer turns to fall, IBM i professionals will be turning out to a pair of events being hosted in the Midwest, including Infor’s imPower 2025 conference in Wisconsin, and COMMON’s NAViGATE conference taking place in Pennsylvania. Both shows are expected to draw hundreds of participants.
NAViGATE 2025 takes place this week in Pittsburgh. COMMON is hosting about 110 sessions on IBM i topics across the three-day event, including sessions on application development, security, high availability, and administering the system.
Tim Rowe, an IBM architect for application development, and Julia Yan, the lead developer of Navigator for i, will be tempting fate with a live demo of Navigator Monday morning. John Westcott, a consultant and Db2 for i team lead for IBM, will talk about database modernization. In the afternoon, Brian May of Profound Logic will discuss Model Context Protocol (MCP) and what it means for IBM i.
On day two, IBM’s Brandon Pederson will seek to uncover the mysteries of IBM i licensing and subscriptions with IBM i License 101. Pete Massiello, who previously was a COMMON president and now is an IBM i advisor at Masiello Holding Corp. will talk about upgrading from IBM i 7.5 to 7.6. In the afternoon, Lightedge mainframe engineer Jeff Carey will hold a frank discussion about how IBM i image catalogs changed his life.
Sanjula Ganepola, one of the up-and-coming IBMers working on the platform, will discuss RPG unit testing in VS Code on day 3, while IBMer Liam Allan, the OG of the IBM i youth movement, will give a preview of what 2026 holds for the future of Code for i. If truth is your gig, you won’t want to miss the incomparable Steve Wolk, who will share his journey to the truth using Ansible and AI.
NAViGATE 2025, which is taking place at Sheraton at Station Square in downtown Pittsburgh, also includes an expo. A dozen or so vendors are set to exhibit their wares, including ARCAD Software, Briteskies, CNX, Eradani, IBM, Fortra, imPower Technologies, Midrange Dynamics of North America, New Generation Software, ProData, Profound Logic, Remain Software, Rocket Software, SriniSoft, SEA, and TL Ashford & Associates.
Next week features a conference of a different sort. ERP giant Infor is holding its inPOWER 2025 conference at the Ingleside Hotel in the Milwaukee suburb of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. The four-day event is slated to feature about 150 sessions from Infor, IBM, and various business partners.
This is the biggest annual show for Infor customers, including organizations that run the three big ERP systems –Infor ERP XA (MAPICS), ERP LX (BPCS), ERP System 21 – as well as some of the lesser-known packages, such as A+. Infor will have its top IBM i executives and managers at the show, including Bill Vellante, Jay Allison, Robert Russel, Ross Freeman, Dave Rapacz, and Adrian Masters. There will be discussion on the Infor Development Framework (IDF), Infor OS, and Infor ION, as well as information on the latest updates to the ERP packages themselves.
The inPOWER 2025 show will feature some of the top IBMers, such as Rowe and his partner in crime/comedy, Db2 for i architect Scott Forstie. Wisconsin resident Jim Buck of imPOWER Technologies (no relation) is also slated to speak on the topic of education. Fresche Solutions and Maxava will also be at inPOWER 2025, as will Crossroads RMC, which will be demonstrating its latest AI-powered dashboard for IBM i data.
About 250 or so Infor customers are expected to attend the event, according to one business partner. This is the go-to conference on the Infor calendar, and one that has benefit many users over the years.
“If one is serious about learning how to maximize their company’s investment in Infor LX and/or to extend the life of their ERP, then inPOWER is a great opportunity to not only learn from Infor team members but also other customers,” stated one attendee of inPOWER 2023, according to the conference organizers.
“With the release of IDF R10, we are looking forward to learning more about how we can move beyond green screen and provide a more productive and modern environment for our workforce,” another said.
For more information on inPOWER 2025, go to https://ibmi.workoutloud.com/event/-inpower-2025.
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