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Alex Woodie

Alex Woodie is Senior Editor at IT Jungle. He was previously editor of two of IT Jungle's main newsletters, Four Hundred Stuff and The Windows Observer. Prior to joining Midrange Server (as Guild Companies was formerly called) in October 2001, Alex was a products editor at now defunct publisher Midrange Computing, where he was first introduced to the AS/400 and covered hardware, software, and services for Midrange Technology SHOWCASE magazine. Before joining Midrange Computing, Alex was a staff writer for The Insurance Journal and a reporter and columnist with The Paradise Post newspaper. Woodie obtained his Bachelors of Arts degree in journalism from Humboldt State University in 1997. Upon graduation, Alex intended to make his way onto a major daily newspaper, but in 1999 he found himself drawn to the high-technology industry, where his background in science and engineering has suited him well. He lives in Northern San Diego County. When he is not writing next week's newsletters, Alex can be found in his favorite chair reading the day's paper, in the kitchen, or at the beach.

  • Former IBMer’s New Book Puts The Midrange In The Spotlight

    June 22, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Over the years, there have been an untold number of books written about IBM and its computing legacy. (Our founding editor, TPM, has most of them in his library.) But very few, if any, of them focus much time on the line of midrange servers that came out of Rochester, Minnesota, including the AS/400, which turned 38 years young yesterday. That void is what drove former IBMer Bill Shaffer, who spent his entire career in the midrange, to write the book IBM & Computing.

    Shaffer spent 40 years at IBM, beginning as a programmer working out of the Miami, …

    Read more
  • PTC Adds Support For VS Code With Implementer 12.7

    June 15, 2026 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that rely on PTC’s Implementer software to manage their RPG development will soon be able to use the tool within the VS Code development environment. The upcoming release of Implementer 12.7 will introduce several other important features as PTC begins the process of modernizing the tool.

    Implementer is a well-established change management system targeting the IBM i environment. The software traces its roots to 1987, when four Pansophic (creators of the PRMS ERP system now owned by Infor) employees founded Silvon Software in Chicago. One of their first products was a tool to manage source code …

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  • Progress And Frustration With IBM i Security, Fortra Finds

    June 8, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Thanks to tougher default configurations by IBM and general awareness, the state of IBM i security has improved somewhat, Fortra says in the 2026 installment of the State of IBM i Security report. But other aspects of security show little to no improvement, leading to frustration among the company’s IBM i security experts.

    For its 23rd annual State of IBM i Security report, Fortra analyzed the security configurations of 163 IBM i server partitions. The anonymous real world data came from Fortra customers and prospects who either agreed to allow the company perform a security scan on their IBM i …

    Read more
  • Lightedge To Start Selling IBM PowerVS to IBM i Customers

    June 8, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Lightedge, one of the largest private cloud providers serving the IBM i market, recently announced that it is going to begin offering IBM’s public cloud service, Power Virtual Server, to its customer base. The move comes amid solid growth in PowerVS and tough competition in the private cloud business.

    Lightedge (formerly LightEdge Solutions) started out in 1996 as an Internet service provider selling networking solutions from its headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa. As Lightedge chief revenue officer Sean Stenger explained to IT Jungle in a 2023 interview, the company slowly started adding additional services served out of co-location facilities …

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  • Big Blue Unveils Bob Premium Pack For IBM i

    June 1, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Early Bob users who were frustrated with the inability to work with source code residing on IBM i will be happy to hear that the functionality will soon be available in the Bob Premium Package, which IBM announced in May and will start shipping in June. The Premium Pack also includes some other new capabilities that will be useful for IBM i developers, including new modes, skills, and tools.

    The first version of IBM’s Bob, the AI tool that help developers understand, document, and generate code in RPG and other IBM i languages, generally has been well-received by the IBM …

    Read more
  • Midrange Dynamics Sees Solid Git Adoption On IBM i

    June 1, 2026 Alex Woodie

    The arrival of AI tools to the IBM i community is helping to drive Git adoption, according to Michael Morgan, the chief executive officer of Midrange Dynamics, a provider of application management software for IBM i. But even without the AI push, the IBM i community is moving solidly toward modern development techniques and tools, Morgan said in an interview.

    “We’re seeing the management expectations that shops use Git as the bigger driver for our customers versus AI,” Morgan told IT Jungle. “AI is a smaller driver of those wanting to get to Git. Even without AI, the movement …

    Read more
  • i-Rays Performance Analyzer Now Ready for Prime Time, Omniology Says

    May 18, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Companies that want to address performance issues on their IBM i applications may want to check out the i-Rays software from Omnilogy. The product has matured considerably since it was introduced to the U.S. market last year, and it now has the backing of prominent IBM i performance expert Dawn May.

    When we first wrote about i-Rays back in May 2025, the offering was brand new to the American market. Marek Walczak, the chief commercial officer for the Polish firm Omniology and the general manager of i-Rays, attended the COMMON POWERUp 2025 conference in Anaheim, California, to test the …

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  • CNX Adds AI To Valence Development Tool

    May 18, 2026 Alex Woodie

    CNX is adding a new AI assistant to Valence, its no-code development environment for IBM i. The AI will provide a range of enhancements to the Valence experience, from helping with modernizing existing greenscreen applications to providing the ability for executives to “chat” with their Db2 for i data.

    Valence is a collection of tools for creating new Web and mobile applications that run on IBM i. The software features RPG procedures for integrating with existing IBM i logic, and generates JavaScript front-ends that are served by IBM i’s native HTTP Server (the one powered by Apache). Popular add-ons include …

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  • Q&A With IBM’s New GM Of Power, Hillery Hunter

    May 11, 2026 Alex Woodie

    IBM’s new general manager of Power, Hillery Hunter, made a solid first impression on the IBM i community during her attendance at the POWERUp conference in New Orleans two weeks ago. In addition to delivering a keynote address, Hunter spoke with many IBM i professionals at the show. She also made some time to speak with IT Jungle. Here’s an edited transcript of our conversation.

    Alex Woodie: Your keynote address during the POWERUp Opening Session was great. Could you elaborate on some of the points you were making about using IBM i as a platform for AI?

    Hillery Hunter: …

    Read more
  • Raz-Lee Revs iSecurity Suite With 2026 Updates

    May 11, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Raz-Lee Security used the recent POWERUp conference in New Orleans as the launch pad for a major new release of its iSecurity Suite. As CEO Shmuel Zailer tells us, the company made substantial changes to ensure that all of the products within the suite work in a more integrated fashion.

    Raz-Lee is one of just a handful of independent IBM i security software vendors left in the market following a period of consolidation by larger firms. However, Raz-Lee’s iSecurity Suite is arguably one of the most complete, with around two dozen point products across seven suites, spanning authentication/authorization; auditing and …

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