• IBM Hikes Hardware, Software, And Services Prices

  November 4, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Inflation might be somewhat tamed in the major economies of the world, but the price increases keep coming from Big Blue as it tries to balance out its costs and its need to profit to drive the stock that provides the real compensation for top executives against customers who are getting pretty sick of price increases in every aspect of their business and personal lives.

  We saw a price increase hit our emails, as did other IBM i shops, on October 29 last week, but if you look at announcement letter AD24-2249, it was dated September 3, 2024. Go …

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• Thoroughly Modern: The Business Case For Success And ROI With Enterprise AI On IBM i

  November 4, 2024 Monica Sanchez

  AI is the new frontier for all organizations, and those running IBM i are no exception – but how will you move AI from buzzword to business case to stand up to the boardroom test?

  To gain executive buy-in, a business case for AI must go beyond ideas. Executives need proof that AI will deliver business value and that the strategy includes a clear roadmap for AI adoption, scalability, and risk management.

  With the right approach, AI can enhance IBM i’s capabilities, from cost savings to new revenue streams. A strong business case – rooted in solid ROI, strategic …

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• Power10 Keeps Plugging Along As Power11 Looms For 2025

  November 4, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Considering how late we are in the Power10 and System z16 product cycles, things went pretty well for IBM in the respective Power Systems and System z businesses in the third quarter of 2024. While customers always look forward to future price/performance enhancements that come with a product refresh, there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary when it comes to a slowdown in sales ahead of next year’s Power11 and “Telum-II” System z17 launches.

  Business seems to be going pretty well for Big Blue, all things considered, although it had to pump $2.73 billion into its pension …

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• As I See It: The Tells

  November 4, 2024 Victor Rozek

  In its early incarnations, AI-generated media was often easy to spot: groups of the same people appearing multiple times in a crowd scene; multi-directional light sources in outdoor settings; mouths moving out-of-sync with the words being spoken; people whose anatomy mysteriously sprouted extra fingers or additional limbs.

  But things quickly improved to the point that deepfake images and manipulated video are no longer obvious constructions. Misinformation from both domestic and foreign sources is now rampant on the Internet, especially during the election cycle and, at a glance, it’s difficult to know if what we’re seeing is real.

  Which is why …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 42

  November 4, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  Welcome to this week’s edition of the IBM i PTF Guide. Just a note of explanation to start off. In the Defective PTF section below, we only show you the first one for each release. Often there are more than one. If there is a new one that you haven’t encountered before, please follow the link in the Guide (for your release level) to get the complete list of defectives. And please review the special instructions – things sometimes become more complex the deeper you dig, especially with defectives.

  Now, here is a bug for you in PowerHA. Some …

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• RPG Code Assist Is The Killer App For AI-Enhanced Power Systems

  October 23, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  “I love it when a plan comes together.” – Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, The A Team.

  Look, we take our wisdom and our joy where we can find it here at The Four Hundred, and it does indeed look like Big Blue has a plan that is coming together with regards to generative AI and the Power Systems hardware platform as it relates to the IBM i software platform.

  We told you in Monday’s issue that IBM was up to something with regard to the Power Systems line, which was revealed to partners and presumably key …

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• IBM Unveils ‘Migrate While Active’ Cloud Offering, HA Subscriptions

  October 23, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM yesterday announced new subscription offerings for its continuous availability and high availability products for IBM i, Db2 Mirror and PowerHA, respectively. It also announced a “migrate while active” program to move IBM i installations to servers running in IBM’s PowerVS cloud or other Power-based clouds.

  For the past two-and-a-half years, IBM has been moving its IBM i software stack, including the operating system as well as supporting facilities, like BRMS, and Cloud Storage Solutions, away from perpetual licenses and toward subscriptions. At the same time, it’s been simplifying the stack by including more utilities, such as Performance Tools and …

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• What’s New on PHP? Seiden Delivers the Goods

  October 23, 2024 Alex Woodie

  PHP has been around so long on the IBM i server that it’s practically a legacy technology at this point (not that that’s a bad thing). But if you haven’t looked at PHP lately, you might be surprised at what’s going on with the newer releases. PHP guru Alan Seiden recently brought us up to speed with the Web development language with a webinar sponsored by TUG.

  Seiden has been involved with PHP on IBM i for about 20 years. He was playing around with the open source language even before IBM and Zend worked together to bring the first …

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• Four Hundred Monitor, October 23

  October 23, 2024 Jenny Thomas

  All things considered, IBM has had a pretty good year. And as we await the Q3 financial results, we are expecting more of the same as confidence for software business growth seems to continue, and GenAI and the hybrid cloud continue to be winners for the bottom line. When you consider that November is next week – you can also tell the end of the year is near by looking at the dwindling items on our calendar – we are already looking ahead to the coming year with optimism. But for now, let’s take a look at the news of …

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• IBM Bolsters Db2 for i With Tech Refreshes

  October 23, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM is delivering a handful of new database capabilities with the latest batch of Technology Refreshes for IBM i 7.5 and 7.4, including new function to create Universally Unique Identifiers (UUIDs), new capabilities for the security data mart, and various enhancements to SQL-based IBM i Services.

  A UUID is a random 36-character, 128-bit alphanumeric string that can be used to identify something, such as a row or table in a database, with near certainty that the identifier is unique, has never been used before, and will never be used again.

  The UUID system was first implemented by the Open Software …

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