The IBM midrange has undergone a transformation in the past 10 years. Technologically? Yes, but there’s also an evolving process of vendor acquisitions and an increased interest in managed services. Last week we saw another prize claimed by HelpSystems as it purchased the security vendor SkyView Partners. The move signals HelpSystems’ interest in developing security as a service for IBM i shops with little or no time to accomplish security initiatives.

The SkyView acquisition is not the first IBM i security company scooped up by HelpSystems. It acquired both PowerTech and Bytware in 2008, and then Safestone in 2012,

The server refresh cycle is picking up steam, with the market turning in one of the best spurts of growth in the first quarter in many a year and reversing a slight downward trend in server revenues across all vendors and machine types that has been putting pressure on vendors for the past several years since the big bounce after the Great Recession recovery. Some big deals at hyperscale companies, in fact, allowed sales in Q1 2015 to more or less match levels set in the second and third quarters of last year.

According to the IDC quarterly server tracker,

If you’re a traditional IBM midrange shop, the idea of managed services provided by a vendor may seem as unlikely as commuting to work in George Jetson’s flying car. But then how do you explain all the managed service providers lining up to do business in the IBM i community? They are all jockeying for position in anticipation of trend toward outsourcing pieces of IT and in some cases, all of IT. Focal Point Solutions Group is carving out a space of its own.

Here’s a scenario that is not uncommon. An organization is running important applications on the IBM

There’s an old chestnut that says you should hire the young while they still know it all. And what a bargain! Insecurity and confusion masked by arrogance and bravado, all at entry level prices. Who could resist? It’s the curse of the human condition that each generation must learn all things afresh. Unfortunately, ignorance coupled with limited experience offer a ready foundation for making poor career choices–decisions that can color a lifetime.

And once mistakes codify into lifestyles, they become very hard to correct. By middle age, bad career choices manifest in resentment and regret. I know of no one

“What’s in a name?” Shakespeare wrote so eloquently hundreds of years ago. “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Words may be imperfect representations for the things we encounter in real life, but even the Bard realized that words nonetheless carry a certain power and have a certain life of their own. And when it comes to the midrange server platform that we all know and love, what we call it is a discussion all its own.

The platform’s official name, per IBM, is “IBM i on IBM Power Systems.” This name