It Is Time To Tell Us What You Are Thinking And Doing

October 6, 2025 Timothy Prickett Morgan

It is the beginning of fall, or autumn if you are in Europe, and you know what that means. No, it is not the deciduous woods turning to the colors of fire. Not it is not football (or soccer for that matter), or harvest time. But it is the time when Fortra opens up its annual IBM i Marketplace Survey, which has been running for more than a decade now.

The annual survey, which is in its 13^th year, opened on September 15. You can give back to the IBM i community and help nudge IBM and ISVs in directions that are helpful to you by taking the survey, which you can do at this link.

As we have pointed out in the past, the results of this survey are an invaluable resource for the IBM i community. This is particularly true since IDC, Gartner, Forrester, and the other IT market researchers and consultancies have long since stopped tracking Power Systems in any kind of detail and certainly don’t spend a lot of time on the IBM i portion of it. Big Blue itself may have lots of insight into its customer base, but it certainly shares very little of that information with the IBM i community. The only way we can figure out what is happening in the IBM i market is for you to tell us. More precisely, we need you to take the 10th annual survey, which is put together by Fortra, which will only be open for a bit longer and which, again, you can take at this link.

As you also know, we use the raw information from the survey to build models of the installed base that, we think, more accurately reflect what is going on in the base. As we have said many times, we think that the IBM i professionals that keep their hardware and systems software relatively current are also the ones who take surveys, go to trade shows, attend webinars, and read publications, and that some of the survey results – particularly those relating to the vintage of Power Systems machines and OS/400, i5/OS, and IBM i releases – represent the distribution across these customers with some processionals who work at companies with systems that are lagging a bit behind the pack. But a lot of customers on vintage systems don’t take the survey, even if they do come to IT Jungle for tech tips or for other insight or for comfort.

But we need the raw data to build those IBM i installed base models, and that is why we are asking you to take some time and take the IBM i Marketplace Survey once again.

We thank you, as always. And in case you are blind or distracted, the link to take the survey is here.

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