How does a venerable computer system act its age? Cleverly, I think, and only when asked to. The AS/400, which has had more names than James Garner in The Rockford Files, is still the AS/400 or “the 400” to most of us despite all the pressure of political correctness to adopt the IBM i name for the operating system and to not talk about the hardware platform as anything but a Power Systems platform. As if any old operating system is as good as any other.

The truly wonderful thing about that AS/400, which celebrates its 8,400th day as

KS2 Technologies, an IBM reseller based near Dallas, is expanding its managed services business into server co-location and hosting, the company announced last week. Under the new plans, KS2 will manage the complete IBM i environment for its customers, and even house the IBM i server in one of its data centers.

KS2 has been in the AS/400 business since it was founded in 1992. About seven years ago, the Grapevine, Texas, company–which is a premier IBM business partner and a member of Arrow Electronics‘ distribution channel–began its JD Edwards practice. Today about 60 percent of KS2’s customers

One of the things I like about Steve Will, the new chief IBM i architect, is that he likes data as much as the rest of us do. When he gives a presentation about the IBM i platform and the Power Systems servers that it runs upon, he isn’t afraid to give you arts and charts and actual information to make a point. And so it is in a recent series of presentations that Will has been giving to the AS/400 faithful regarding IBM i roadmaps and other things.

We’ve gone through the roadmaps and the new process for updating

“To be normal is the ideal aim of the unsuccessful.” At least that was psychologist Carl Jung’s dismissive opinion. For something that is hard to define, “normal” gets a bad rap. It’s like being average: everyone wants to be thought of as above average, but not if it means being abnormal.

What’s considered normal may simply be a matter of numbers and context. If enough people buy a pink car, we become a pink car nation. If pink cars become obsolete, the next mode of popular transportation becomes normal. Then there are sub-groups that contextually delineate normality. If you’re wealthy,

Disasters make great news. We read and watch these reports of tornados and floods and earthquakes and tsunamis, but even if we take the time to consider what we’d do if a disaster crashed into our lives, those thoughts are fleeting. We settle back into our routines and wait for the next report of a disaster that doesn’t directly affect us. Most IT departments are run with this same attitude. So it was with equal parts amusement and dismay that I examined a survey of IBM i shops conducted by United Computer Group.

UCG is a provider of online

The AS/400 turns 23 this week, as we point out elsewhere in this issue of The Four Hundred, and this is your platform as much as anyone else’s. That is why you should take a few moments and participate in the Top i Concerns survey, which is one of the few ways that the joes and janes of the IBM midrange have a chance to send some input more or less directly to Big Blue.

The Top i Concerns survey is being conducted by COMMON Europe, which had hoped to have a representative number of participants ahead of

When more and more people are saying the same thing, it’s gotta be true. Right? Participants in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market–including the companies themselves and the vendors that supply thing to them–are certainly hoping so as more good news comes from a recent study by IDC.

According to the IDC, IT spending growth has returned more rapidly than expected since the recession officially ended in 2009. IDC’s recent forecast found the nearly 8 million SMBs in the United States will spend more than $125 billion on advanced technology in 2011, an increase from approximately $120 billion

The server market did alright in the first quarter thanks to a rebound in spending on RISC and mainframe servers (including Power Systems machines from IBM running its quasi-eponymous IBM i operating system) and a desire by companies to install fatter boxes across the architectural board to support virtualization. Sales of companion external disk arrays, not surprisingly, also did well as companies continue to suffer from information constipation.

Storage arrays are not always refreshed at the same time as servers, but at this point in the evolution of servers, storage, and networks, it probably makes sense to get all the

Brian May has been an integral part of the Young i Professionals organization since its inception. He is a frequent speaker at COMMON conferences and a member of several advisory committees for that organization. He’s a subject matter expert in RPG. Numerous local user groups have brought him in as a guest speaker. You might say he gets around.

A couple of months ago May landed at Profound Logic, where he is now an IBM i modernization specialist for the application development and modernization tool maker based in Dayton, Ohio. His primary project at this stage is rebuilding product

Ho-hum or gung-ho? Which is it going to be? It’s just about that time for the annual OCEAN Tech Conference, an opportunity to see and hear about the new technologies that apply to the IBM i platform. You know, it’s only a legacy system if you allow it to be one. And if you and your IT staff have no modern skills, what does that make you? A legacy programmer? A legacy systems admin?

The OCEAN Tech Conference is not the only place where you can pick up the pace of what’s happening in your IT department. But it’s a