Here is an important question: Are some independent software vendors having a negative impact on IBM i? You are probably thinking that this question is a little harsh. But time and time again, I continue to get questions from customers on this issue. As such, I feel compelled to address it and take a look at what is currently going on.

Starting with a little history will help. Back–and I mean way back when the AS/400 was first announced nearly 30 years ago–remember what the AS in AS/400 stood for: Application Systems. Without a doubt, the success of the

Every new generation of DDR main memory brings advantages of lower latency, higher frequency, higher bandwidth, and lower energy consumption, and this is always a good thing for any server platform. The Power8 systems that launched in 2014 with the Power8 processors were based on DDR3 technology, which was mature at the time and, frankly, less costly for IBM to deploy in its systems then DDR4 DIMMs would have been.

Now that DDR4 pricing has come down, thanks in large part to the widespread adoption of this chip technology by Intel‘s “Haswell” and now “Broadwell” lines of Xeon E5

Support for open source development on IBM i has been a big deal for the Technology Refresh program. Just last week, with the latest TR announcement, support for Perl was added along with support for the current version of Node.js, which is v6. In previous TRs, we have seen support for programming languages like Ruby and Python, plus tools such as the GNU Compiler Collection and Git. The PHP language, the Eclipse integrated development environment, and the Apache web server are pre-TR open source advancements.

Compared to Node.js, Python, Ruby, and PHP, there’s not much happening in terms of new

One of the most compelling announcements out of IBM last week was the launch of Cloud Storage Solutions for i. The new offering, which becomes available October 28 with a starting cost of $2,400, will allow customers on IBM i 7.1 or later to back up to 1TB on IBM’s cloud, directly through BRMS. Some may even be able to get rid of their tape drives entirely, IBM says.

Cloud storage isn’t new, of course. It’s not even new on the IBM i platform, thanks to the work of a number of managed service providers (MSPs) who have been offering

You probably don’t know Chris Rushak. But the odds that you know someone like him are pretty high. In fact, you might be the person who has a lot in common with him. Rushak is an RPG developer with a boatload of experience coding green-screen applications from scratch. He’s done it for decades and is comfortable with his fixed-format RPG III skills. Those green-screen applications do the job just fine. But then came the request for a mobile application.

The business problem was an inability to accurately track inventory from the receiving area to the warehouse and then to production