2016 Predictions for IBM i: Round Two

Last week, we ran our first roundup of 2016 predictions from various CEOs and other prominent members of the IBM i community (see “2016 Predictions For IBM i: Cautious Optimism”). As promised, here we go for a second round, which continues the optimistic note, for both the platform and the community as a whole.

Jim Oberholtzer, CEO at Agile Technology Architects

“I think the biggest play for IBM in the new year will be the open source movement on Power, and specifically on IBM i. IBM has been laying the groundwork for a major push in those technologies over the last year, and while I don’t think IBM will blow the horn loudly enough, there will be a very significant series of announcements in that area, however understated they will be.”

“I’m looking for IBM i Next and a hardware announcement in early 2016. If you have been watching the cadence of the announcements and listening to the IBM speeches, they’ve hinted strongly this will all happen. Also Rochester has beefed up security so that almost always happens before an announcement. With Alison Butterill moving to Austin from Canada, that signals positive things for IBM i. Lastly I’m betting Power and IBM i will lead in the revenue and profitability of IBM in 2015 and that trend will continue in 2016. We’ll know when they release financials at the end of the year.”

Aaron Bartell, director of IBM i Innovation at KrengelTech

“The pioneer phase of moving your IBM i to the cloud is done. It’s now ‘safe enough’ for most. We will continue to see a focus of making existing technology more easily accessible. DB2 for i Services are evidence of that. Further, included with DB2 Services are queries like GROUP_PTF_CURRENCY, which automate the process of comparing the Group PTFs on your machine to the latest on IBM’s Web server (literally making web service calls under the covers). Similar advancements to this need to continue for IBM i to have a competitive edge.”

“I believe we are at the cusp of IBM i being accessible to the masses, though we’re not there yet. To date it has been near impossible for the average developer (or business) to procure an IBM i machine on their own in a relatively small amount of time. In my experience it usually takes at least a month. The many IBM i cloud companies will start competing for business–eventually making it easier to procure an IBM i in the cloud in much less time.”

“At KrengelTech we’ve had an intense focus on open source with our Litmis.com efforts. Because of this we have a different perspective than most. For example, we are seeing shops determine RPG has served them well over the years. Yet, they don’t believe it will serve them well into the connected Web world. These shops are now pursuing languages like Ruby, Node.js, PHP, and Python. We have customers that are training their existing RPG staff to learn these new open source languages. We help with that process. RPG is a good language and will be around for a long time. However, I don’t believe the community (specifically, RPG open source projects) is numerous enough to keep RPG shops competitive with technology. What’s interesting is that many shops realized this a decade ago and began moving to Microsoft .NET. Well, now you can have even better technology stacks with open source software that run right on your IBM i. It’s of course possible to train non-RPG programmers to be RPG programmers, but I believe that to be a temporary Band-Aid. Tech leaders in businesses need to forecast where they want to be in five years and start making transitionary decisions.”

“There’s a new breed and type of developer being born. Developers that consider technology a hobby and love, love, love tinkering. These types have existed for decades but are now becoming more prevalent because of how much easier it is today to get into ‘geekdom.’ For example, this past weekend I hosted a “Hack the Planet” programming party for my sons and nephews, all 12 years old and under. We spent our time programming Scratch.mit.edu, Lego Mindstorms, Sphero.com, Raspberry Pi, and even had one coding a Node.js chat application. They find this type of coding fun. These are the developers of tomorrow businesses need to supplement in their shops. Today the technology landscape is full of choices. The ones you find who simply never stop ‘tinkering’ seem to have the minds best-suited for locating and implementing the right technology.”

Christopher Burns, senior consultant at GEMKO Information Group

“In 2016, it’s a safe bet that IBM will not purchase commercial time during the Super Bowl to remind us that the IBM i platform is alive and well with a bright future. It is a much safer bet, however, that Baghdad Bob will purchase commercial time during a rerun of a cheap SyFy disaster flick to remind us that the IBM i platform. . . most notably RPG. . . is dead. In 2016, Aaron Bartell will keep making us feel old and leave our heads spinning with his new open source breakthroughs for IBM i (see above). Consequently, we’ll feel young again when ‘Hello World’ comes up. In 2016, the grocery store shelf stocking profession will be infused with many new seasoned RPG-III programmers. Likewise, legions of 20-somethings taking their place will be exposed to this language called RPG, in its 2015 form, and find it pretty easy and somewhat cool. Also in 2016, we’ll hear braggadocious stories about organizations moving data and applications to the cloud. Likewise, we’ll hear chilling horror stories about organizations attempting to pull applications and data back from the cloud to internal systems. ‘Attempting’ being the operative word. In this pivotal election year, Watson will predict all 470 races inside the Beltway with greater accuracy than any of the talking heads on cable. Without the double talk or the disclaimers. And. . . in 2016, Inuendo will deliver many new features. . . some by design and some by accident. . . and remain an even better kept secret than IBM i itself. Happy new year to all. . . and that’s no secret.”

Allan Campbell, CEO Maxava

“We see a large shift in DR strategy occurring in the SMB areas as IBM i shops look to upgrade from tape to save time and to avoid having to re-key lost data in a disaster scenario. The challenges of avoiding further CapEx investment plus the growing maturity of cloud services probably explains why we see a major uptick in DRaaS, which we predict will easily eclipse traditional license sales for new DR customers this year.”

“Cloud is going mainstream for the IBM i with customers mixing and matching in-house and cloud based services as their needs dictate. ‘No-down-time-migrations’ are becoming the norm as customers use their real time replication solutions to run parallel production environments for upgrades. A further consolidation of traditional IBM i reseller and ISVs will continue, but a few new offerings popping up to provide options for customers.”

“I hope that organizations wake up to their underutilized resources and spin up their new business applications on IBM i. After all, they have already made the investment and have the ‘gold standard’ for business applications in-house. I hope that we can attract more youth and vigor into the product innovation and sales and marketing side of the IBM i ISV market–more action there generates more interesting work and vitality downstream on the technical side.”

“And to stir it up a little, that we finally retire the name IBM i. Let’s embrace a name that leverages an unequalled heritage in business computing while highlighting the stellar credentials to be the leader for the future of business and cloud processing. How about AS/5000 (next year we can have AS/6000)–sorry, Trevor Perry has been a bit quiet recently.”

Alan Seiden, owner of Alan Seiden Consulting

“In 2016, PHP 7 will bring a burst of excitement and interest. This version adds enterprise-friendly features and dramatic performance improvements while seeking to retain PHP’s hallmark: a smooth learning curve for beginners. In the recent past, practices such as unit testing and continuous integration have become mainstream for many PHP developers on non-IBM i systems. In 2016, these will become mainstream on IBM i as well. IBM i professionals will realize that they are part of the larger IBM i community and, eager to strengthen that community on which they rely, will find a way (even by using their own funds) to join local user groups and attend conferences, or at least online virtual groups.”

“We will continue to see mind-blowing innovation from the DB2 team in Rochester. IBM i shops will accept remote teams more readily, learning how to manage projects efficiently when remote developers are included. Rochester will earn extra money by selling vanity CCSIDs.”

Alan Arnold, executive VP and CTO of Vision Solutions

“2016 will continue to be the year of the cloud for many organizations including those on Power Systems. Businesses will continue to look for less expensive and more efficient methods of running their IT organizations. Power Systems will continue to be an opportunity for many companies to partner with Power MSP and cloud services providers to help manage their resource issues (i.e. aging and retiring Power talent) and capital expenditures by paying for only those Power resources consumed. Hybrid environments of cloud/on-prem will continue to become the new-normal of most IT environments, specifically with Power Systems interfacing with large SaaS environments. Power Systems will continue to an important focus for Vision as we bring new solutions to the market to help our new and existing customers address the cloud and big data opportunities. Continued to build new features within MIMIX and iTera that will allow HA and data management in new and metered (pay for what you use only model) to change the way HA/DR and data is delivered/managed on Power Systems.”

Marty Acks, production visionary at CDI Technology

“At CDI, a large part of business is providing e-commerce, payments, and supplier collaboration solutions for IBM i customers using JD Edwards World and EnterpriseOne. We are seeing successes in new World and EnterpriseOne installation, which therefore drive new IBM i and Power Systems sales. Our customers rely on the platform for back-office operations and as the engine behind new initiatives such as webstores and supplier portals. We are bullish on the IBM i. We see 2016 as a good year for the platform.”

Amanda Blackburn, product marketing manager, Profound Logic Software

“From my perspective, I believe that the greatest gains for IBM i will continue to be new technologies, like mobile, and languages, like Node.js. But I also believe 2016 needs to be the year of hiring and training new developers to assure that the platform continues to have a nice, long lifespan. With free format RPG, this should be easier than ever. Profound will be investing in our own internship programs to teach students how to program on IBM i, and will continue to support IBM i teaching programs like Jim Buck’s courses at Gateway Technical College and COMMON‘s educational initiatives.”

Charles Guarino, president of Central Park Data Systems

“It’s one year later and the time consuming brain dumps of older developers, particularly those with retirement in their sights will become even more important and valuable given their vast institutional knowledge. Usable technical documentation is imperative. This will be challenging however because of time constraints and the shortage of highly-skilled RPG developers to carry the torch forward. The demand for junior-level and middle-tier developers will be stronger than ever. Production legacy code, even when stable, needs to be updated at least minimally so newer developers can continue to maintain it.”

“As the openness of IBM i and the constant improvement to RPG (such as **FREE), along with the push to SQL-based database continue, pure legacy developers of any age will have an increasingly difficult time supporting the status quo. RDi usage, with its significant foothold from years past will experience accelerated adoption as more developers employ the newer features of RPG. Integrating web services and APIs into applications will be more prevalent as applications become more elastic and IBM continues rolling out more and improving existing native integration tooling. Deadlines will become tighter and enterprise expectations will rise as modern application developers with newer skills fulfill IT business programming requirements with less effort. Managing fast company growth will put higher pressure on the time to deliver urgent projects. IBM i opportunities abound on many levels for any professional who is committed to advancing their career.”

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