Fall TRs Expected Next Week At Combined IBM-COMMON Conference
October 19, 2026 Alex Woodie
Big Blue delayed its spring Technology Refreshes for IBM i earlier by three months this year so that it could simultaneously announce the new entry level Power server. It seems very unlikely that we’ll see such a delay for the fall TR, however, as IBM gears up for its semi-annual announcement for the still-popular midrange server at next week’s combined IBM-COMMON conference.
There are several indicators that the fall TR is looming. For starters, IBM essentially said that the fall TR is coming in the description for one of its upcoming IBM i Guided Tours, which have become the favored vehicle for IBM to disseminate information via webcast.
The November 4 Guided Tour, titled The Next Wave of IBM i Innovation: New Enhancements for Security, Performance, and Modernization, will feature the IBM i brain trust of Kris Whitney, who took over the IBM i Chief Architect chair after the retirement of Steve Will, along with his top lieutenants: Db2 for i business architect Scott Forstie, senior technical staff member for IBM i application development & system management Tim Rowe, and IBM i security business architect Tim Mullenbach.
The second big indication that the fall IBM i TR announcement is happening next week is the big IBM i conference that’s taking place next week in Atlanta, Georgia. Well, technically, there are two conferences taking place at the Georgia World Congress Center October 26 through 29: IBM TechXchange 2026 and COMMON NAViGATE (technically called NAViGATE at IBM TechXchange).
You can register for COMMON NAViGATE at IBM TechXchange by clicking the image.
At this time, there do not appear to be any sessions at either conference with a title that’s specifically referencing the fall TR. However, for some reason, COMMON has only posted the schedule for NAViGATE for Monday October 26, leaving the schedule for the rest of the week – which includes several hundred sessions over the course of three days – inaccessible via the Web. IBM is wont to make big announcements on Tuesdays (although the 2026 summer TR was made on a Wednesday), so it very well could be that NAViGATE attendees will have a plethora of sessions about the fall TRs to attend. That would fit the long-standing pattern for IBM and its primary user group for IBM i, after all.
IBM has posted its entire schedule for all 1,417 sessions and events at TechXchange on this website. There are several IBM i-related sessions for that show, including What’s New in DB2 for i: IBM i 7.6 Release and Latest TR Updates on October 28, which is actually a COMMON session. Since the two events are being held simultaneously, the IBM i content is being provided through the COMMON portion of the event.
All told, the TechXchange website lists 145 COMMON sessions over the four days of the conference. In addition to the above session on the database, TechXchange lists sessions on security Bob, using MCP with IBM i, and the new Migrate While Active product, among other topics.
The decision to co-locate NAViGATE with TechXchange was made to broaden COMMON members’ horizons with access to information about different technologies and different communities, said COMMON president Peg Tuttle.
“Think of it as everything that you already know and love with NAViGATE but then having a way bigger playground,” Tuttle says in a video on the COMMON website. “[The conference will have] IBM i education, familiar speakers, the COMMON community and networking and the culture that they know and love. But the difference that they’re going to really see and hear is that they’re going to have access to that broader technology ecosystem, AI, hybrid cloud, Red Hat, open source. You’ll learn from IBM experts industry leaders, peers that all have the same challenges that you have and you know what. You’re going to leave smarter and you’re going to leave with relationships in that community and that networking aspect as well.”
IBM delayed its spring announcement for three months earlier this year. The spring TR traditionally is made in April. But this year, the announcement of IBM i 7.6 TR2 and 7.5 TR8 didn’t arrive until late July. The reason for that delay was to simultaneously announce the new operating system releases as well as the new Power S1112 entry-level server. IBM wanted to make sure that the new server could run the updated IBM i OSes on day one, and delaying the software announcement appeared to be the best way to do that (after all, a new server can’t run an operating system that doesn’t technically exist).
So, what will next week’s expected TR announcement bring us? While IBM could always surprise us, all indications point to a standard TR announcement, which would bring us IBM i 7.6 TR3 and 7.5 TR9.
As always, check with IT Jungle for breaking news on new IBM i TRs and other news. And in the meantime, you can still register for the COMMON NAViGATE. Tickets cost just $1,295, which gets attendees full access to TechXchange, too. You can find out more by clicking here.
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