HelpSystems is set to be acquired by H.I.G. Capital, a Florida-based private equity and alternative assets investment firm with more than $19 billion in assets. Terms of the deal, which is not yet finalized and is subject to regulatory approval, were not disclosed. It will be the fourth sale in 10 years of HelpSystems, the Minnesota software company that has since become the biggest provider of systems management tools and utilities for the IBM i server.

So who is the company now behind HelpSystems, which has grown its influence over the IBM i market following a long string of

A few weeks ago, in the main story in this newsletter, I showed you the Power processor roadmap running out past the Power10 chip in 2020 and later and talked about the contrast between the huge amount of processing capacity that IBM is delivering in its Power Systems line and the relatively modest amount of oomph that the vast majority of IBM i shops need to do their daily work to make their daily bread. The gap, as I showed, is quite large, and it will continue to be so if current trends for usage growth and capacity growth continue.

Three weeks ago, I wrote an article about free-form RPG, a runner-up in the IBM best kept secrets game and second only to magnificently camouflaged IBM i. Since then, I’ve collected the opinions of several more free-form observers. I’ve not talked with anyone who believes IBM is doing enough to encourage free-form conversion of old RPG code. But there is more to say about whether the benefits and the effort it takes to make the code conversion.

Technically, the conversion from fixed-format to free-form RPG is pretty simple. Tools from IBM i ISVs ARCAD and Linoma Software are capable and

In 1798 Robert Malthus triggered a perpetual debate about the damaging effects of demographic pressure. An Essay on the Principle of Population asserted that, unchecked by canon, custom or calamity, a nation’s fecundity will outpace its ability to produce or procure food. A similar phenomenon can weaken a company. IBM’s revenue per employee has fallen since 2004, two years into Sam Palmisano decade-long reign. IBM’s subsequent leader, Ginny Rometty, hasn’t been able to reverse this dire trend; consequently, IBM’s corporate culture is losing vitality as its employees become financially undernourished.

For IBM, as for other cultural aggregates since biblical

Profound Logic Software, one of the leading IBM i vendors in the application modernization field, has hired Ted Holt, editor of our Four Hundred Guru newsletter. Holt is well known in the IBM midrange community for his knowledge of the platform, advocacy for IBM i education, and his contributions as a writer and speaker. His position at Profound will be senior software developer. He will continue as editor of Four Hundred Guru.

In his new role at Profound, Holt will contribute to the development of new and existing products. The company’s graphical user interface suite, known as Profound