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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.

  • The Problem With ERP

    March 4, 2019 Alex Woodie

    Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software has been the backbone of modern business since it emerged in the mid-1990s. Hundreds of billions of dollars have gone into ERP implementations with the promise of enhanced business processes automation. But was it all worth it? According to new research from Computer Economics, the answer is not clear.

    Every year in its Technology Trends report, Computer Economics surveys a few hundred IT decision makers to gauge their satisfaction level with a variety of technologies. For the past two years, ERP scored dead last in terms of satisfaction and return on investment (ROI). In fact, …

    Read more
  • IBM i DevOps Gets Simpler On Skytap Cloud

    February 25, 2019 Alex Woodie

    IBM i professionals who yearn for the administrative simplicity of Amazon Web Services will soon be rewarded when Skytap’s IBM i cloud becomes generally available next quarter. Among the IBM partners Skytap is tapping for the roll-out is Rocket Software, which is integrating the Aldon suite of lifecycle management tools to simplify DevOps in a potentially ground-breaking new way.

    Rocket Software is in the process of certifying its Aldon Lifecyle Manager for IBM i (LMi) software to run on Skytap‘s public cloud offering for IBM i. Late last year, Skytap, which has Amazon’s Jeff Bezos as a major investor …

    Read more
  • Building A Positive Culture of Learning On IBM i

    February 18, 2019 Alex Woodie

    How do you motivate IBM i programmers to keep learning new technologies, long after they have mastered the RPG skills they use the most? There’s no simple answer to that question, which was the topic of a recent conversation IT Jungle had with PHP on IBM i guru Alan Seiden and Heidi Schmidt, the head of PKS Software.

    IBM i shops face several interrelated problems when it comes to their personnel, which traditionally is one of the biggest line items in the IT budget. These challenges include: the aging of IBM i professionals; the retirements of baby boomer-aged personnel; the …

    Read more
  • Domino And Notes 10 Finally Come To IBM i

    February 11, 2019 Alex Woodie

    They say good things come to those who wait. The IBM i community has waited over 10 years for a new release of Domino and Notes, and they were rewarded last week when IBM announced version 10 is now available on IBM i.

    Domino and Notes 10 is the first major release of the server component of the business collaboration platform since Domino 8.5 was released way back in 2008 (version 9 was a minor release). The future of the platform was up in the air for a while, and many people who have dedicated a chunk of their careers …

    Read more
  • More IBM i Predictions For 2019

    February 6, 2019 Alex Woodie

    We kicked off our 2019 soothsaying last week with predictions from IBM i leaders on what the New Year will bring. We keep the ball rolling this week with another batch of predictions from our friends around the IBM i community.

    According to Alison Butterill, IBM‘s the program director for offering management for IBM i, the platform will build off the momentum generated with last year’s 30th anniversary celebrant.

    “The excitement begun in 2018 as we highlighted client innovation around the world will continue into 2019,” Butterill says. “The momentum continues to grow as clients are looking at ways …

    Read more
  • Meet The 2019 Champions For IBM i

    February 6, 2019 Alex Woodie

    It’s a new year, which means a new crop of champions has emerged from IBM. More than 600 souls can call themselves IBM Champions this year, but only 64 identify as IBM Champions for Power Systems. We whittled away the AIX and Linux experts to leave you with the folks who will lead the IBM i charge in 2019.

    IBM does not have a specific category for IBM i Champions. Big Blue breaks out its System z leaders, along with champion categories for Data & Analytics, Cloud, Collaboration Solutions, Storage, Watson IoT, Blockchain, and Security.

    For the Champion program, IBM …

    Read more
  • Inside The Latest ALL400s Report

    February 6, 2019 Alex Woodie

    In early 2018, John Rockwell started a survey from his ALL400s website in an attempt to glean more information about the state of midrange community. Many of the questions are about which products IBM i professionals use, but the survey also digs into other aspects of the relationships that people and organizations have with the platform, including plans to migrate off IBM i.

    According to the latest ALL400s survey of the midrange community, more IBM i shops say they have no plans to move off the platform. It was a small increase — from 57.5 percent last April who said …

    Read more
  • Taking A Fresche Approach To IBM i-Watson Education

    February 4, 2019 Alex Woodie

    There is a big data analytics revolution taking place that threatens to separate the AI haves from the have-nots. Companies that run the IBM i server want to get in on the analytics action just like everybody else, but AI discussions often stray away from IBM i. Now Fresche Solutions is working to close that disconnect with a series of educational courses centered squarely on the intersection of IBM i and Watson.

    Last year, Fresche Solutions worked with IBM last year to put together a series of onsite training seminars aimed at giving IBM i professionals the educational tools they …

    Read more
  • 2019 Predictions: IBM i Trend Spotting

    January 23, 2019 Alex Woodie

    What will happen in the IBM i community this year? Maybe IBM will launch a public cloud service? Or IBM i shops will find the budget to get busy with application modernization? It’s really anybody’s guess, which is why IT Jungle solicited predictions from prominent names in the community to get their take on what will happen this year.

    The wider IT community is moving quickly to adopt next-gen development methodologies, and those will increasingly find their way into the IBM i community in 2019, predicts Dan Magid, vice president of solution sales with Rocket Software.

    “2019 will bring …

    Read more
  • Public Cloud Dreaming For IBM i

    January 23, 2019 Alex Woodie

    Is the IBM i community suffering from a bad case of cloud envy? While we profess to love our servers, it’s difficult to sit by and watch as our Windows and Linux colleagues tap into unlimited storage and compute resources offered by public cloud vendors. Maybe that will all change in 2019, but it’s not looking likely.

    Public cloud vendors have invested hundreds of billions of dollars to build massive data centers around to world to house scads of cheap X86 servers and storage resources. Tens of thousands of companies have moved some or all of their computing stacks into …

    Read more

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