• 2024 IBM i Predictions Part 3 – The Final Chapter

  February 5, 2024 Alex Woodie

  Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog who forecast an early spring on Friday, is said to have a long-term success rate of about 31 percent with his forecasts. What’s the accuracy rate of the IBM i experts who contribute to these yearly predictions? To borrow a line from the Magic 8 Ball, the answer is hazy at the moment. But one thing is clear: The IBM i ecosystem as a whole maintains an unabashedly optimistic and sunny disposition.

  One of the brighter stars in the IBM i galaxy, Connectria regional sales director Peg Tuttle sees several trends emerging in the …

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• IBM i Shops Are Still Getting Their Generative AI Acts Together

  February 5, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  One of the great things about participating in the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey put together by Fortra – and one of the reasons why our beloved colleague Dan Burger helped HelpSystems create the survey a decade ago – was that we get to have input into how the survey is created and how it evolves over time.

  During the survey, our host Tom Huntington, executive vice president of technical solutions at Fortra, does an instant poll for attendees, and rather than ask the same question as last year, which was about where people get their information about the IBM …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 5

  February 5, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  Here is the latest on the mystery of the disappearing QSYS library. If you use SF99740 and SF99741 downloaded from this week, then there shouldn’t be any issues with applying any of the groups. The fixing PTF SI85707 is included in the latest DB group, even though it does not have a new level and does not have a cover letter. If you are using either of those Group PTF orders from prior weeks, then the workaround we described last week is the best course of action.

  Be careful here. When you order SF99740, you will receive several .bin files. …

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• Power Systems Grows For The Second Year In A Row

  January 29, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  Here at The Four Hundred, we take good news very seriously, and so we will just cut to the chase scene and tell you that IBM’s Power Systems business has grown for the second year in a row.

  Take that in for a second. Savor it.

  Think about the dozen years of dramatic decline we saw in the RISC/Unix and IBM i parts of the Power Systems business in the wake of the Great Recession in 2009, when the X86 platform from Intel finally got enough features – as did Windows Server and Linux – to compete effectively against …

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• The IBM i Base Is Ready To Keep Investing In The Future

  January 29, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  We are at the beginning of a new year, and of course that means that it was time for us to participate in the annual IBM i Marketplace Survey webinar, which is sponsored by Fortra and which is now in its 10th year. We enjoy the webinar that Forta hosts to have a bunch of people from IBM and myself riff on what the survey results mean – and what they don’t mean.

  Our host on the webinar was Tom Huntington, executive vice president of technical solutions at Fortra, and we were joined by Douglas Gibbs and Dan Sundt, who …

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• New IBM Champion Class Grows Nearly 40 Percent

  January 29, 2024 Alex Woodie

  IBM unveiled a new crop of IBM Champions this month, and the first thing that stands out is the size of the 2024 IBM Champions class. Big Blue gave the honor to 1,155 individuals this year, a 38 percent increase over last year. Just about everyone who applied was named an IBM Champion, says Libby Ingrassia, the IBM program director, who also noted there was considerable overlap between IBM Champions and the new IBM Rising Champion Advocacy badge program.

  IBM launched its IBM Champions program back in 2008 as a way to boost the visibility of customers and business partners …

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• As I See It: The Other Eight Hours

  January 29, 2024 Victor Rozek

  In 1594, Philip II of Spain issued a royal edict establishing an 8-hour workday for construction workers in the Spanish colonies. As far as we know, there were no time restrictions on pillaging.

  It took another 223 years for the notion of an 8-hour workday to find a supportive voice in England, albeit not a royal one. Robert Owen was something of an oxymoron in his day. He was both a textile manufacturer and a social reformer. As early as 1810 he proposed and instituted a 10-hour workday in a Scottish cotton mill. But by 1817 he had revised his …

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• IBM i PTF Guide, Volume 26, Number 4

  January 29, 2024 Doug Bidwell

  OK, here’s a weird one and one that we have helped several customers sort out in the past few days and heard about from other business partners. There is a defective PTF for IBM i 7.4 that when applied with other software patches can cause the QSYS file system at the heart of the IBM i platform to magically disappear.

  Ooooof! Kinda hits you right in the solar plexus when you think about it. . . .

  This one is number 50 on the defective PTF list for IBM i 7.4, which you can read about at this link and …

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• IBM Cloud Storage And BRMS Get Subscription Pricing

  January 22, 2024 Timothy Prickett Morgan

  As you are well aware, Big Blue is in the middle of converting the IBM i software stack from perpetual software licensing and Software Maintenance pricing to straight-up subscription pricing. Now, subscription pricing has come to IBM Cloud Storage as well as to the venerable Backup, Recovery and Media Services for i (BRMS).

  The new pricing was revealed in announcement letter AD23-0531, and it appears to be an option, not a requirement. Remember, for IBM i 7.4 and IBM i 7.5 themselves, perpetual licensing based on IBM i software tiers will only be available through the end of March …

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• Futureproofing Your IT Infrastructure: Trends and Technologies to Watch in 2024

  January 22, 2024 Tom Horan

  As the digital landscape evolves at breakneck speed, organizations face the constant challenge of adapting or being left behind. In 2024, navigating this technological terrain requires a keen eye on emerging trends and technologies set to shape the IT landscape. From artificial intelligence and automation to hybrid cloud and the ever-evolving threat landscape, businesses need to be strategic in their approach to leverage these shifts for a competitive edge. For those navigating these changes, here are four key trends to watch and insights on how to leverage them for a competitive edge:

  1. Artificial Intelligence Leaps Forward

  AI is no longer …

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