It seems increasingly likely to us that over the long haul IBM will get out of manufacturing all but the largest of its Power-based servers and its System z mainframe line, which by definition is big iron. There are a number of implications of this strategy for IBM i shops, of course, but let’s be honest here. Connect the dots and this seems inevitable.

Back in the AS/400 days, IBM made a custom machine, complete with homegrown processors and auxiliary compute, its own memory, and its own disk drives. When IBM started converging the AS400 and RS/6000 lines on the

In the IBM i world, no software vendor has found as much as success as JD Edwards. Sold to PeopleSoft for $1.8 billion in 2002 and now a part of Oracle, JD Edwards was the gold standard by which other ERP packages on the platform were measured. Now the principle founder of JD Edwards, Ed McVaney, is involved in another software startup in the Denver, Colorado area called Nextworld. But what does the company do?

That’s a tough question to answer, as the company is still in “stealth mode” ahead of an official launch, ostensibly, at some point

It would be great fun to begin this article with news that IBM i enthusiasts were virtually lined up like box cars on freight trains to download Rational Developer for i (RDi), the modern graphical design tool for application development. It’s not that dramatic. Sheer numbers don’t tell the entire story, however. There’s a bit of detectable momentum. What are the chances IBM will help that momentum grow? It’s actually better than the pessimistic answer: slim and none.

One reason for optimism stems from the Rational for i team escaping IBM Software Group in 2015 and finding a more welcoming

She was born nearly a century ago in a little town in West Virginia with the unappealing name of White Sulphur Springs. There, the well-healed gathered to escape the summer heat and soak away their ailments at a resort that employed her father. She would not have been welcome there as a guest, however. She is black.

At the time, educational opportunities for black children in her county–those who could even contemplate such lavishness–ended with eighth grade. So her parents were forced to find a high school she would be permitted to attend, the nearest being about 120 miles away.

The chilling reality of IT security weaknesses is widely overlooked and often assumed to be something that only affects someone else’s business. A close look at our own organizations makes us uncomfortable. So do stories that include expert opinions that every business should begin its security review with the realization that a security breach has already occurred. That’s how real the threat is. And your current security policy, if you even have one, is probably obsolete.

Security is an ongoing process. It’s not inherent in the system, not even the legendary IBM i platform.

“Attackers and their targets and objectives