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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.

  • Spring IBM i Tech Refreshes Will Come A Bit Later This Year

    April 13, 2026 Alex Woodie

    IBM is working on a new Technology Refresh, as it traditionally does this time of year. But the spring TR announcement will not be made before the POWERUp conference takes place at the end of the month, IT Jungle has learned. Instead, the company will be holding off on the spring TR so that it aligns with a broader Power announcement.

    IBM i shops have been conditioned to expect two TRs every year, one in the spring (usually April) and another in the fall (usually October). The spring TR is usually timed to occur before COMMON holds its annual POWERUp …

    Read more
  • Startup Seeks The “Golden Path” for IBM i Modernization

    April 13, 2026 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops looking for a partner to help with RPG modernization may want to check out Golden Path Digital. The startup recently announced a modernization initiative dubbed AS/Forward that includes a mix of code documentation and AI-powered code conversion tools, all wrapped up with professional services, to give IBM i shops a lifeline for aging RPG apps.

    Golden Path Digital was founded last year in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, by two business partners, Aaron Balentine and Ty Woods. An AI engineer at a local lumber company that runs on the IBM i platform, Valentine is the technical one, while …

    Read more
  • Bob 1.0 Users Bugged By Lack Of One Feature

    April 6, 2026 Alex Woodie

    The launch of the Bob AI coding tool in late March has been met with considerable amount of hoopla by IBM, as well as anticipation by the IBM i community. The early reception to Bob has been mixed, due in part to the lack of one particular feature.

    Bob is a new AI tool from IBM that’s designed to help developers understand, document, and generate code in a variety of languages and platforms. On the IBM i server, Bob supports RPG, as well as CL, SQL, DDS, and COBOL, while it supports other languages on other platforms. IBM introduced Bob …

    Read more
  • Here Come The AI-Based Code Modernization Offerings

    April 6, 2026 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that are stuck with old code but don’t have the manpower to modernize it themselves are now considering the use of AI to handle much work. This new era of AI-assisted application modernization that we are now entering has the potential to be a boon for understaffed IBM i shops, but it raises new questions and concerns that IBM i professionals should keep in mind.

    The capability of AI to understand, document, and generate computer code has increased significantly over the past year. Thanks to fundamental improvements in large language models (LLMs), we’re now at the point …

    Read more
  • What IBM i Ideas Are Cooking In IBM’s Ideas Portal?

    March 30, 2026 Alex Woodie

    It is early spring, which means we are getting close to Technology Refresh (TR) time. What new functionality will IBM add to the IBM i operating system and related products? Nobody knows except IBM and its closest business partners, but we can get an idea of what might be cooking in the next IBM i TR by checking out the IBM Ideas Portal.

    The IBM Ideas Portal was implemented back in 2022 to replace the IBM Request for Enhancement (RFE) process, which IBM formalized with a Web-based voting and ranking system back in 2016. The Ideas Portal works as …

    Read more
  • Early Bob Excels In Medhost IBM i Tryout

    March 30, 2026 Alex Woodie

    One of the early testers of the IBM Bob AI tool is Medhost, the longtime developer of an integrated IBM i-based healthcare applications for community and rural hospitals. According to a joint presentation between IBM and the software vendor last week, the beta test was a success, as Bob assisted Medhost in not only understanding its RPG and SQL codebases, but modernizing and enhancing them.

    IBM i chief architect Steve Will was joined by Michael Bowen, the senior vice president of technology at Medhost, in a webinar last week to discuss how the provider of electronic health records (EHR) …

    Read more
  • IBM Taps Nvidia GPUs For AI-Turbocharged Data Mart

    March 23, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Nvidia became the world’s most valuable company thanks to its powerful GPUs, which can be used to train massive AI models containing trillions of parameters. But those GPUs can also be used to accelerate traditional SQL analytics on structured data sitting in a data lake, as IBM’s customer Nestlé found out in a recent deployment.

    Nestlé is the world’s largest food manufacturer, with more than 2,000 brands and operations spanning 186 countries. The Swiss company, which recorded revenues of CHF 89.5 billion ($113.5 billion at current exchange rates), operates 335 factories and employs about 271,000 people.

    The company, which is …

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  • Izzi Partners With Capricorn For IBM i Services And Bluehouse For Software Peddling

    March 23, 2026 Alex Woodie

    UPDATED: Izzi Software has partnered with a pair of companies with connections to IBM midrange and mainframe systems, including Capricorn Information Systems, a New York provider of IBM i technical services, and Bluehouse, a software distributor with a global network of sellers.

    Izzi emerged in early 2025 with a goal to buy smaller, founder-led software companies with revenues in the range of $2 million to $10 million who play in the IBM i and System Z markets. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company has made a handful of acquisitions to date, including System Z development tool provider Colesoft in 2025, …

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  • What Is Threatening IBM i Security Now

    March 16, 2026 Alex Woodie

    The nature of cybersecurity threats is always changing, which requires constant vigilance by those who value security. IBM i is just as exposed to threats as any other networked operating system on the planet, but it’s also unique in certain ways, which actually makes security harder. To get the lowdown on how these phenomena interrelate in the first quarter of 2026, we turn to renown IBM i security expert Carol Woodbury from Kisco.

    Woodbury recently sat down with Justin Loeber, the Kisco owner and head of business development, to present a webinar titled IBM i Threat Landscape 2026: A Fireside …

    Read more
  • GiAPA Tracks SQL Performance Issues On IBM i

    March 16, 2026 Alex Woodie

    Tracking down SQL performance problems with IBM i applications sometimes can be difficult, thanks to the mysterious ways that IBM’s Db2 query optimizer works. To help shine a light on changes the optimizer may suddenly make to query access plans, the IBM i performance experts behind GiAPA developed a new tool, dubbed SQL Observer.

    The Db2 query optimizer is a wonder of software engineering. The IBMers who developed it deserve a ton of credit for creating a smart piece of software that keeps SQL queries running so efficiently. Users simply submit the query they want to run, and the …

    Read more

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  • Spring IBM i Tech Refreshes Will Come A Bit Later This Year
  • You Are Much More Than Power Systems, And So Are We
  • Startup Seeks The “Golden Path” for IBM i Modernization
  • What Can IBM Do To Make The Future Power S1112 Mini System Compelling?
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 15
  • Bob 1.0 Users Bugged By Lack Of One Feature
  • Here Come The AI-Based Code Modernization Offerings
  • Guru: Cohesion First – What A Procedure Should Be Responsible For
  • IBM Offers Trade-Ins On Storage To Grease The Upgrade Skids
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 28, Number 14

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