• The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact
Menu
  • The Four Hundred
  • Subscribe
  • Media Kit
  • Contributors
  • About Us
  • Contact

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.

  • IBM i Has a Future “If Kept Up To Date,”‘ IDC Says

    March 22, 2023 Alex Woodie

    The slow demise and death of IBM i has been greatly exaggerated, at least in the eyes of IDC. In a white paper for Rocket Software, an analyst for the storied firm says that IBM i does indeed have a future in customers’ digital strategies, provided it’s “kept up to date.” That’s good news for the community, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

    Application modernization has been an important topic for IBM i shops for decades, particularly when it comes to organizations that believe they’re still living in the early 1990s. While you technically can run …

    Read more
  • Generative AI: Coming to an ERP Near You

    March 22, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Don’t look now, but generative AI technology like ChatGPT is spreading into every aspect of computing, including the large enterprise applications at the heart of business. The technology may not be on IBM i-based ERP suites yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

    The sophistication of AI technology has been building steadily for the past 10 years, thanks to the adoption of massive neural networks that can be trained on huge amounts of unstructured data, such as text and images.

    Dubbed deep learning, the brute-force approach paid handsome dividends for two computational problems in particular: computer vision and natural …

    Read more
  • Unattended IBM i Operations Continue Upward Climb

    March 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    One of the IBM i server’s traditional strengths is its capability to run for long periods of time in an unattended manner. While manual intervention is inevitably necessary at some point in time, the human resources required to manage IBM i is far less than other business platforms. And according to the latest data from Fortra IBM i Marketplace Survey, more than three-quarters of IBM i shops are embracing automation.

    In late 2022, Fortra (formerly HelpSystems) peppered a couple of hundred IBM i shops with a variety of questions about their IBM i setups, including the number and type of …

    Read more
  • Domino Runs on IBM i 7.5, But HCL Still Working on Power10

    March 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    IBM i shops that use Domino to serve email and drive other forms of communication will be happy to know they can run Domino 12.2 on IBM i 7.5. However, if they want to run the setup on a Power10 server, they will need to wait a little longer for HCL to support it.

    Back in 2017, HCL Technologies took over development and maintenance of the Domino and Notes product line from IBM. Two years later, the India-based tech firm pushed out version 10 of Domino and Notes and related products (like Sametime, Traveler, and Verse), the first major …

    Read more
  • Spring Brings Events To IBM i Community, And More

    March 13, 2023 Alex Woodie

    As the calendar flips over from winter to spring, the IBM i community begins to stir in anticipation of in-person get-togethers. Many of the events continue to be virtual, but some, like COMMON’s POWERUp and WMCPA’s iCON, are expected to draw hundreds of people. And the calendar shows that IBM’s spring Tech Refresh can’t be too far away.

    The in-person fun kicks off tomorrow as members of the IBM i community descend on the Lake Lawn Resort in Delavan, Wisconsin, which is playing host to the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association (WMCPA) and its Spring Conference 2023.

     

    The three-day …

    Read more
  • Rocket Rolls Out IBM i Modernization Bundle

    March 6, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Rocket Software last week unveiled a new collection of tools designed to help IBM i shops elevate their game across multiple IT disciplines. Dubbed the Rocket Modernization Suite for IBM i, the new bundle brings together existing Rocket offerings in the DevOps, APIs, test automation, HA/DR, terminal emulation, and Web-enablement spaces. It’s all about lowering the barrier to adopting Rocket tools and improving customer productivity when they do, the company says.

    Like other software vendors in the space, Rocket Software has accumulated somewhat of a disparate collection of tools for the IBM i server. The Massachusetts vendor started its IBM …

    Read more
  • Db2 Web Query: Way More Than Just A Query Tool

    February 27, 2023 Alex Woodie

    You might be forgiven for thinking that Db2 Web Query is just a way to run your SQL queries on IBM i from a browser. After all, “Web” and “query” are right there in the name, aren’t they? But the product’s name belies the true nature of this multi-threat analytics application, which can do a whole lot more for IBM i shops than just run queries.

    IBM’s Doug Mack tackled this reality-assumption gap during a recent webinar on Db2 Web Query, which received a bunch of new capabilities with the recent version 2.4.0 upgrade. Mack, a longtime IBMer whose …

    Read more
  • RPG Use “Skyrocketed” Says IBM i Marketplace Report

    February 20, 2023 Alex Woodie

    RPG has always been the number one development language on IBM i, the platform with which it is most closely linked. But as open source languages like PHP and Java spread on IBM i, some speculated that RPG’s popularity would begin to slip. That hasn’t happened, according to Fortra’s most recent IBM i Marketplace Survey Results report. In fact, usage of RPG has “skyrocketed,” it says.

    From 2015 to 2020, the percentage of Fortra (formerly HelpSystems) Marketplace Survey-takers who chose RPG as one of their development languages stayed steady, hovering around the 84 percent to 89 percent level. Structured Query …

    Read more
  • Zero-Day Vulnerability in Fortra’s GoAnywhere MFT Being Actively Exploited

    February 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    A critical security vulnerability in Fortra’s (formerly HelpSystems) managed file transfer (MFT) solution, GoAnywhere MFT, is being actively exploited to steal data from companies and possibly even to spread ransomware according to published reports. Fortra told customers to consider every managed credential in their GoAnywhere environment to be compromised, shut down cloud instances of the service, and issued an emergency patch for the zero-day security vulnerability.

    Security reporter Brian Krebs was the first to share news of the vulnerability, which is described as remote code injection flaw that requires administrative console access for successful exploitation. In a February 2 post …

    Read more
  • Getting Ready for IBM i Cloud Migrations

    February 15, 2023 Alex Woodie

    Interest in the cloud is growing at the moment as IBM i shops put all their run-time options on the table. However, customers who decide to move IBM i workloads to the cloud often don’t have a firm grasp on everything that goes into such a migration. There’s a lot of prep work that needs to be done, and too many shops are not ready when moving day arrives.

    Many IBM i shops are considering a move to the cloud, according to the 2023 IBM i Marketplace Study from Fortra (formerly HelpSystems). The report showed that cloud migrations moved from …

    Read more

Previous Articles Next Articles

Content archive

  • The Four Hundred
  • Four Hundred Stuff
  • Four Hundred Guru

Recent Posts

  • With Power11, Power Systems “Go To Eleven”
  • With Subscription Price, IBM i P20 And P30 Tiers Get Bigger Bundles
  • Izzi Buys CNX, Eyes Valence Port To System Z
  • IBM i Shops “Attacking” Security Concerns, Study Shows
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 26
  • Liam Allan Shares What’s Coming Next With Code For IBM i
  • From Stable To Scalable: Visual LANSA 16 Powers IBM i Growth – Launching July 8
  • VS Code Will Be The Heart Of The Modern IBM i Platform
  • The AS/400: A 37-Year-Old Dog That Loves To Learn New Tricks
  • IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 27, Number 25

Subscribe

To get news from IT Jungle sent to your inbox every week, subscribe to our newsletter.

Pages

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Contributors
  • Four Hundred Monitor
  • IBM i PTF Guide
  • Media Kit
  • Subscribe

Search

Copyright © 2025 IT Jungle