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.
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2025: An IBM i Year In Review
January 12, 2026 Alex Woodie
The calendar has flipped over into the new year, bringing with it hope that the next twelve months will unfold in a positive way. It’s also a good time to reflect on what 2025 brought to the IBM i community, and to remember the big news events that occurred in our little sector of the IT market.
January
IBM hired a new vice president of product management for the Power Systems business. Bargav Balakrishnan was promoted to the position, which was previously held by Steve Sibley. Balakrishnan, who has a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, …
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Learning And Laughing With Scott Forstie And Tim Rowe
December 8, 2025 Alex Woodie
In the darkest days of the 2020 pandemic, with COVID lockdowns in full force, IBM i business architects Tim Rowe and Scott Forstie decided to try something new: start a video blog. Dubbed iSee, the short videos blend serious technical content around ACS and SQL services with goofy puns and silly drawings. Fast forward to fall 2025, and iSee is going strong, as the pair recently aired their 100th iSee episode.
“Scott and I have been thinking about some fun things that we want to talk about to help you in your every day job,” Rowe said in the very …
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Bob More Than Just A Code Assistant, IBM i Chief Architect Will Says
December 1, 2025 Alex Woodie
When IBM i professionals finally get their hands on Bob, the new AI-powered tool currently in development in Big Blue’s labs, they will find that it is much more than just a code assistant, IBM i chief Architect Steve Will said recently. “It has a lot of knowledge,” he said. “It knows things about IBM i.”
While precise details about the timing of the release of Bob are slim, IBM is widely expected to release a public preview of the new AI-powered plug-in for VS Code in early 2026. The new software, which was unveiled in early October around the …
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Where Infor Is Headed With Its ERPs For IBM i
November 17, 2025 Alex Woodie
As the largest provider of IBM i-based ERP systems that isn’t named Oracle or SAP, Infor wields a significant amount of influence over the midrange marketplace. Companies that run XA, LX, and System 21 rely on Infor to keep their ERP systems up-to-date and viable with changing business and technology requirements. To that end, Infor shared some of its roadmap items with the user community during the recent inPOWER 2025 event.
More than 450 people attended the inPOWER 2025 conference, which took place in late September in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. The event was sponsored by the XA, LX, System 21, and …
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Rocket Delivers More DevOps Capabilities For IBM i
November 17, 2025 Alex Woodie
Rocket Software recently put the finishing touches on a range of updates for Rocket DevOps, its suite of automation, change management, and testing solutions for IBM i. The top enhancements customers will find are two-way Git integration, AI-powered anomaly detection, unit testing enhancements, and support for IBM i DevOps workflows in Microsoft Azure Pipelines.
It’s been a 2.5 years now that Rocket Software completed the rebrand from the old Aldon change management products, which it obtained with its 2011 acquisition, to Rocket DevOps. That Rocket DevOps rebrand involved taking the old Aldon Lifecycle Manager products – which helped automate …
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Fresche Taps AI For New RPG-To-Java Conversion Tool
November 10, 2025 Alex Woodie
Fresche Solutions has launched X-Modernize AI, a new offering that uses generative AI technology to convert legacy RPG and Synon code to modern Java. The software, which is based on large language models and its X-Analysis cross-reference and code understanding tool, will speed up code conversion projects by a significant amount, the company claims.
Fresche Solutions is no stranger to legacy modernization projects and tools that convert RPG code into languages like Java, PHP, and .NET. In fact, the company’s very first announcement after it changed its name from Speedware to Fresche Legacy way back in 2012 was the acquisition …
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EvolveWare Makes Progress With RPG Code Modernization Using AI
November 3, 2025 Alex Woodie
IBM i shops that are looking for a partner to help them modernize RPG using AI have a number of companies to choose from, including IBM, which unveiled Project Bob last month. Another company to keep in mind is EvolveWare, which recently released its RPG code understanding tool and has plans to release a code generation product for RPG based on large language models (LLMs) in 2026.
EvolveWare has been treading the code modernization waters since it was founded by chief executive officer Miten Marfatia in Santa Clara, California, back in 2001. The company has primarily been involved in COBOL …
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Beta Of MCP Server Opens Up IBM i For Agentic AI
October 27, 2025 Alex Woodie
When Anthropic quietly released Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024, it didn’t garner a whole lot attention. But as the agentic AI wave grew in early 2025, the protocol suddenly was hailed as the new standard for integrating AI applications, tools, and data sources. A good indication of just how far MCP has come is the fact that IBM released an early version of the MCP server for IBM i this month.
Project Bob got the big headlines at the IBM TechXchange conference, which took place the second week of October in Orlando, Florida. And for good reason, as …
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IBM Pulls The Curtain Back A Smidge On Project Bob
October 20, 2025 Alex Woodie
We learned last week that Project Bob is in at IBM, and Watson Code Assist for IBM i is out. IBM is gung-ho about the prospects for Bob to function as a do-it-all, AI-powered junior programmer for all of its platforms. But what exactly does this entail for IBM i customers? IT Jungle talked to IBM i chief architect Steve Will to get some answers.
When IBM eventually ships the AI code assistant that is currently called Project Bob, it will offer a range of AI-powered functionality for all IBM customers, including IBM i shops, mainframe customers, and Linux and …
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IBM Just Killed Merlin. Here’s Why
October 20, 2025 Alex Woodie
The writing had been on the wall for some time, and IBM finally made it official as part of the Technology Refresh for IBM i on October 7. That was when Big Blue announced the immediate withdrawal from marketing and service for its Modernization Engine for Lifecycle Integration product, commonly called Merlin. It will likely go down in IBM i history as a well-intentioned product that got some things right, but which ultimately could not overcome its flaws.
The introduction of Merlin back in May 2022 represented a sizable shift in IBM’s approach to application development on IBM i. Prior …
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