Four Hundred Monitor, February 12

February 12, 2020 Jenny Thomas

We take great pride in being a respected and reliable purveyor of information in the IBM i ecosystem. But in order to distribute information, we have to find it. In the IBM i world, that data can be hard to come by. Fortunately for us, we have our editor in chief Timothy Prickett Morgan who is able to slice and dice whatever data nuggets he gets and coax out their relevance to our favorite platform. Another valuable resource for data are the surveys more and more players in the IBM i space are conducting. Your responses tell them about your needs and they tell us what’s on your mind and what might be coming. You’ll find two such surveys in the Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources section below, and we hope you’ll take a minute to log your opinions and make your voice heard.

Top Stories From Outside The Jungle

(IT Jungle) IBM does not supply a lot of data about the Power Systems hardware platform and its IBM i software platform, so thank goodness for Timothy Prickett Morgan who gathers up whatever data he can find to try to figure out where we are at and where we might be going.

(Forbes) IBM has been named a “Top Socially Responsible Dividend Stock” because of its above average results.

(Fox Business) IBM X-Force head Wendi Whitmore says despite risks, users still refuse to change their passwords.

(The Verge) Online chat has become a common tool in many workplaces, including IBM which just picked Slack as its chat platform.

(Seeking Alpha) How will the departure of CEO Ginni Rometty affect IBM’s stock? This article has one prediction.

Redbooks, White Papers, Blogs, and Other Resources

(Profound Logic Software) Do you have an opinion on modernization? Profound wants to hear it. The goal of this survey is to get a clearer picture of the state of IBM i modernization in today’s businesses. Your responses will help to paint a picture of how the platform is being used, and what the future of the platform looks like.

(HelpSystems) The results of the sixth IBM i Marketplace Survey have been sliced and diced and discussed by our own Tim Prickett Morgan, who participated in a webinar with HelpSystems executive vice president of technical solutions Tom Huntington, IBM i product offering manager Alison Butterill, IBM Lab Services division executive Ian Jarman, and, worldwide IBM i product marketing manager Brandon Pederson. You can get a copy of the survey report and also listen to a replay of the webcast at this link.

(Fresche Solutions) How are you leveraging your systems and innovating for the future? Fresche’s 2020 IBM i in Business Survey will provide critical understanding into the role that IT plays in business. Participants will receive a report and invitation for a live session about the results.

(IBM News Room) This page showcases IBMers whose innovations shape the way we work and live.

(IBM Research Blog) IBM reviews its key AI research at the conference on Artificial Intelligence.

Chats, Webinars, Seminars, Shows, and Other Happenings

February 18 – IBM Schaumburg – RDi/RPG Hands-On Boot Camp 2020 is an all-day event with lecture and hands-on labs featuring Jim Buck. The seasoned IBM i programmer will see the benefits of using new RPG programming techniques and get hands-on experience with RDi’s Remote Systems Explorer (RSE), Screen Designer and interactive debugger. Developers can learn how to make the transition to using RDi from traditional tools like SEU and PDM. If a developer has been using RDi, the RDi techniques and RPG “Free” examples will move them to the next level.

February 19 – Webinar – Get a first look at NGS’s new online analytical processing (OLAP) application for IBM i users during this webinar. Qport SmartView offers analytical and graphical visualization features to IBM i users. Learn how you can see real-time operational data without offloading it to another server or maintaining massive Excel pivot tables.

March 23-24 – Dallas, Texas – The CIO Summit is a complimentary event for IT executives, hosted by IBM i Champion Alan Seiden. Participants exchange tips and brainstorm ideas for addressing common challenges faced by IBM i CIOs and IT Directors, such as managing new technology, hiring the right skills, and keeping IT aligned with business. Special guest Heidi Schmidt, leader in IT generational change and knowledge transfer, will join in to share her experience in creating more efficient, innovative IBM i development teams.

March 24-26 – Dallas, Texas – The RPG & DB2 Summit heads to Dallas with new sessions, new workshops, new ideas, and new tools. Paul Tuohy, Susan Gantner and Jon Paris lead a team of 13 top experts teaching the critical skills you need to excel with modern IBM i development. SQL, RPG, Db2, ILE, open source, ACS, RDi, data analytics, web services, web and mobile apps — it’s all packed into a highly-concentrated three-day learning experience.

March 25 – Webinar – Join Profound Logic for a webinar to learn about the power of Node.js and NodeRun, and how you can: quickly create data-driven business dashboards; reduce software development time-to-market with a streamlined approach that requires fewer developers; create applications to access data from multiple sources, including relational databases and RESTful API; and make the data visually appealing with charts, grids, and other widgets

April 6-8 – Framingham, Massachusetts – Join the Northeast User Group (NEUGC) Conference where attendees will be saying cheers to 30 years. NEUGC is the largest technical conference in New England for IBM i.

April 19-22 – Atlanta, Georgia – POWERUp 2020 will offer between 350-400 sessions presented by more than 100 IT professionals, and features the largest exposition of its kind. This conference structured to give you the pure education and professional connections needed to best enhance your career.

May 20-21 – Nashville, Tennessee – php[tek] is the longest-running web developer conference in the United States that has a focus on the PHP programming language. The event is broken up into multiple days. The main conference happens over the course of two days (May 20-21) and includes keynotes, talks, and networking options. It will be broken into three tracks on Tech Leadership, PHP Development, and Web Technologies. There is an optional Workshop day that precedes the conference that lets attendees take two separate in-depth half-day workshops. We also offer full-day training classes preceding the conference on May 18 on deep technical topics for independent purchase.