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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.

  • Quantum to Help IBM Develop LTO-10

    October 27, 2021 Alex Woodie

    IBM and Quantum last week announced they have entered into a partnership to jointly develop the next generation of Linear Tape-Open (LTO) technology, LTO-10, which is currently under development and likely will come to market in 2024 or 2025.

    The announcement was unusually terse in its wording. “Under the terms of the agreement,” Quantum stated in its October 19 press release, “Quantum will collaborate with IBM in its development of LTO-10 tape drives and media in order to accelerate time-to-market, capacity, and performance. The specific terms of the agreement are confidential and will not be disclosed.”

    The fact that IBM …

    Read more
  • Remain Bolsters Change Management Suite

    October 27, 2021 Alex Woodie

    In the market for change management software? One of the most active vendors in the IBM i space, Remain Software, this month announced the delivery of several new releases of its software, including TD/OMS version 14, Gravity version 7, and a new release of its API Studio.

    Remain develops and supports its application lifecycle management (ALM) software for IBM i and open system platforms out of its headquarters in The Netherlands. It has several partners in the United States and other countries, giving it a global reach with its flagship TD/OMS offering and supporting cast of tools.

    In early October, …

    Read more
  • HelpSystems Goes Phishing For Cyber Threat Hunter

    October 25, 2021 Alex Woodie

    HelpSystems dipped into the security pond again with its acquisition last week of PhishLabs, a Canadian company that develops technology designed to protect organizations from various Internet-based threats, including malicious emails, account takeover, and data leakage. As is the case with most of HelpSystems’ acquisitions, its IBM i customer are expected to be among the beneficiaries.

    For over a decade, PhishLabs has been developing a security platform designed to find and identify and counteract threats to customers. As its name suggests, the company got its start with identifying phishing attacks. Its founder and chief technology officer, John LaCour, grew frustrated …

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  • Yes, AI Is Happening on IBM i, and It’s Happening Now

    October 20, 2021 Alex Woodie

    Artificial intelligence is often thought of as a futuristic technology that may have repercussions for IBM i, but only in the future. Maybe AI will be important to IBM i about the same time when we have flying cars and moving sidewalks. But as a recent POWERUp presentation by an IBM cloud and AI architect shows, AI is already happening on the IBM i server, and it’s happening today.

    Benoit Marolleau, who is the cloud and AI architect for the IBM Client Center Montpellier (France), made a compelling case for IBM i shops to start exploring how they can potentially …

    Read more
  • Original and Midrange Dynamics in IBM i Test Tie-Up

    October 20, 2021 Alex Woodie

    In the fast-paced world of DevOps, it’s critical to test your applications in a timely fashion. The quicker you can spot bugs and other issues, the quicker you can fix them and get the new features into production. That’s the gist behind a new partnership recently unveiled by Original Software and Midrange Dynamics, two of the leading providers of DevOps and test automation tooling, respectively.

    On September 30, the two vendors announced they have entered into a partnership that will not only see them marketing to their respective customer bases, but also integrating their respective offerings to deliver, as they …

    Read more
  • Planning A Modernization Project? Read This First

    October 18, 2021 Alex Woodie

    Modernization means a lot of things to a lot of people. If you happen to ask Chris Koppe, the senior vice president of strategy, transformation, and modernization services at Fresche Solutions, what modernization means to him, get ready to spend the next hour listening to his response.

    That’s the approximate length of Koppe’s recent presentation at the POWERUp conference, titled Developing Your Modernization Plan: What Are Your Options? and it’s worth every second. Koppe explored the topic in such breadth and depth that we though it was worth highlighting his main points. Of course, if you’re a COMMON member and …

    Read more
  • Sibley Highlights Power10’s Security and AI Capabilities

    October 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

    As the vice president and global offering management for Cognitive Systems at IBM, Steve Sibley often gets the honor of delivering the keynote address at the annual POWERUp conference. During his keynote at last week’s show, Sibley used the time to delve into the latest Power10 processor and its extensive list of new features, including some designed specifically to boost AI and security.

    “One of the real privileges I have as project manager for Power Systems to be able to take the key innovations our team is developing in Rochester and our different development labs around the world, and bring …

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  • End of Life Looms for PHP 7.3

    October 13, 2021 Alex Woodie

    Organizations that are running PHP version 7.3 have just over a month to upgrade to a newer version and avoid losing bug fixes and security fixes when 7.3 hits the end of life (EOL) on December 6. The good news is that PHP version 7.4 and 8.0 are stable and will be supported for some time. The not-so-good news is it appears a large number of IBM i shops are still running older releases of the PHP language.

    According to an informal poll conducted by Seiden Group last month, about half of the IBM i shops that participated in a …

    Read more
  • IBM Shares COVID-19 Success Stories at POWERUp 2021

    October 11, 2021 Alex Woodie

    Hearing how your fellow IBM i customers use the platform is always fun, and it’s often informative, too. The IBM i product management team checked both of those boxes last week during the POWERUp 2021 conference, where they detailed how a handful of IBM i shops have found success with the platform, particularly during COVID-19.

    Take Magid, for example. The Illinois-based company is a manufacturer and distributor of personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks and gloves. Demand for PPE spiked at the start of COVID-19, and has remained high throughout the pandemic. That demand caused the company to make …

    Read more
  • The Mod Squad Comes Together to Modernize Old RPG

    October 6, 2021 Alex Woodie

    In the early 70s, a group of fictional social misfits joined up to solve crimes on the hit television series The Mod Squad. Now a group of real-life IBM i professionals of the same name are uniting to solve an equally pressing problem: modernizing old RPG code, including some that dates back to the 1970s.

    “You’ve heard of IBM‘s upward compatibility,” says Rich Ollari, an IBM i veteran who is one of the ringleaders of the new Mod Squad. “Code that ran back in the 80s, even the 70s, is still running today, and that’s what we’re fighting with. …

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