• Strategic Topics To Think About For 2026, Part 1

  February 9, 2026 Philippe Magne

  Longevity is an amazing thing. ARCAD Software has now amassed more than 34 years of expertise centered around everything related to DevSecOps transformations. To start off the new year, I would like to share six strategic ideas that will help shape 2026 in the IBM i market, and beyond it.

  The big new development for ARCAD is our fourth brand, called DISCOVER, which is focused on application intelligence. It’s the newest addition, and it’s very promising. We’re delighted to have convinced more than 25 customers by year 2025, and I think this will evolve significantly this year.

  DISCOVER is all …

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• Rolling The Die In 2026: IBM i Predictions, Take Two

  February 2, 2026 Alex Woodie

  A traditional Chinese curse states “May you live in interesting times.” That curse may apply to IBM i shops in 2026, which opens with equal parts uncertainty and anticipation. Artificial intelligence looms large, not only over information technology, but life as we know it. Add in the other variables impacting the midrange in the second year of the second quarter of the 21st century Anno Domini, and what you get is…well, interesting.

  We start our second and final compilation of 2026 predictions with Bargav Balakrishnan, IBM’s vice president of product management for infrastructure. Balakrishnan took over the post …

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• Shaking The IBM i Magic Eight Ball For 2026

  January 26, 2026 Alex Woodie

  After one more trip around the Sun, the IBM i community is back at it for another turn. What will become of our favorite box in 2026, let alone the people who work on it? That is not easy to say. As the great ballplayer/philosopher Yogi Berra once said: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But we try anyway.

  We kick off 2026 IBM i predictions with some targeted insight from Bill Langston, director of marketing, New Generation Software:

  “I feel like 2026 will be a quiet year with the most adventurous IBM i customers …

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• Profound Says New Agentic AI Dev Tool Delivers Huge Productivity Boost

  January 19, 2026 Alex Woodie

  Profound Logic is rolling out a new AI-powered development tool that it says will increase the productivity of individual developers by five to 10 times. Dubbed CoderFlow, the software coordinates the work of multiple AI agents to assist with the development new IBM i applications or the maintenance and modernization of existing ones.

  Existing AI copilots provide some productivity gains for developers working in an IDE, somewhere around 20 percent, according to Profound Logic chief executive officer Alex Roytman. But CoderFlow is a different type of product. It is not a coding co-pilot, he said. Instead it is a framework …

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• Guru: A First Look at Bob, The IBM i Assistant That’s Closer Than You Think

  December 8, 2025 Gregory Simmons

  I recently was granted early access to IBM’s new Project Bob, and I have been putting the Bob-IDE through its paces to understand what IBM is aiming for and what IBM i developers should expect as the offering matures. Bob is IBM’s emerging AI-powered development assistant and IDE ecosystem designed to modernize how developers work on the IBM i.

  One of the first things that stands out is that the Bob-IDE is not an extension like the older WCA4i project, which was in extension form. IBM learned a lot from that experience, and those lessons led them to take a …

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• Bob More Than Just A Code Assistant, IBM i Chief Architect Will Says

  December 1, 2025 Alex Woodie

  When IBM i professionals finally get their hands on Bob, the new AI-powered tool currently in development in Big Blue’s labs, they will find that it is much more than just a code assistant, IBM i chief Architect Steve Will said recently. “It has a lot of knowledge,” he said. “It knows things about IBM i.”

  While precise details about the timing of the release of Bob are slim, IBM is widely expected to release a public preview of the new AI-powered plug-in for VS Code in early 2026. The new software, which was unveiled in early October around the …

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• Rocket Delivers More DevOps Capabilities For IBM i

  November 17, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Rocket Software recently put the finishing touches on a range of updates for Rocket DevOps, its suite of automation, change management, and testing solutions for IBM i. The top enhancements customers will find are two-way Git integration, AI-powered anomaly detection, unit testing enhancements, and support for IBM i DevOps workflows in Microsoft Azure Pipelines.

  It’s been a 2.5 years now that Rocket Software completed the rebrand from the old Aldon change management products, which it obtained with its 2011 acquisition, to Rocket DevOps. That Rocket DevOps rebrand involved taking the old Aldon Lifecycle Manager products – which helped automate …

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• Fresche Taps AI For New RPG-To-Java Conversion Tool

  November 10, 2025 Alex Woodie

  Fresche Solutions has launched X-Modernize AI, a new offering that uses generative AI technology to convert legacy RPG and Synon code to modern Java. The software, which is based on large language models and its X-Analysis cross-reference and code understanding tool, will speed up code conversion projects by a significant amount, the company claims.

  Fresche Solutions is no stranger to legacy modernization projects and tools that convert RPG code into languages like Java, PHP, and .NET. In fact, the company’s very first announcement after it changed its name from Speedware to Fresche Legacy way back in 2012 was the acquisition …

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• EvolveWare Makes Progress With RPG Code Modernization Using AI

  November 3, 2025 Alex Woodie

  IBM i shops that are looking for a partner to help them modernize RPG using AI have a number of companies to choose from, including IBM, which unveiled Project Bob last month. Another company to keep in mind is EvolveWare, which recently released its RPG code understanding tool and has plans to release a code generation product for RPG based on large language models (LLMs) in 2026.

  EvolveWare has been treading the code modernization waters since it was founded by chief executive officer Miten Marfatia in Santa Clara, California, back in 2001. The company has primarily been involved in COBOL …

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• IBM Pulls The Curtain Back A Smidge On Project Bob

  October 20, 2025 Alex Woodie

  We learned last week that Project Bob is in at IBM, and Watson Code Assist for IBM i is out. IBM is gung-ho about the prospects for Bob to function as a do-it-all, AI-powered junior programmer for all of its platforms. But what exactly does this entail for IBM i customers? IT Jungle talked to IBM i chief architect Steve Will to get some answers.

  When IBM eventually ships the AI code assistant that is currently called Project Bob, it will offer a range of AI-powered functionality for all IBM customers, including IBM i shops, mainframe customers, and Linux and …

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