System iNetwork

February 2008

February 26, 2008 11:38 PM

i-Focused Conferences Around the Corner

Speaking of having COMMON on my brain, there are three other in-person conferences coming up that deliver some seriously i-focused education. COMMON may be the big daddy of the System i conferences, but sometimes a shot of focus can energize you more than larger tent-pole events. The RPG & DB2 Summit, RPG World 2008, and the 2008 IT Leaders Forum are coming faster than you might think.

Right around the corner is the RPG and DB2 Summit, where IBM's George Farr first hinted about componentized WDSc last year. The conference is set for March 11-13 in Orlando, and it will again kick off with a George Farr keynote address. Well-known System i experts Paul Tuohy, Jon Paris, Skip Marchesani, and Susan Gantner will provide the foundation for most of the educational sessions.

The gathering will have four concurrent educational tracks, three with an RPG focus and one purely devoted to DB2 and SQL items. Key topics include V6R1, RPG IV, ILE, SQL, DB2, WDSc, and RPG and the Web. IBM's lead developer for the RPG compiler, Barbara Morris, will also be available at the keynote address to provide technical details, and she will lead several technical elective sessions. Special guest instructors in addition to Farr and Morris include System iNEWS Technical Editor Scott Klement and IBM's Tom McKinley.

Coming May 5-7, RPG World 2008 will hit Las Vegas. RPG World boasts 12 sessions per day with three educational tracks, and it's anchored by System i and RPG expert Bob Cozzi, who doesn't really need an introduction since most every RPG programmer has heard of him or has read his books. Either way, Cozzi is also the guy who delivers our System iNetwork Tuesday Tips video podcast.

Running concurrently with RPG World is the Professional Developers Conference, which starts a day earlier on May 4. Overall session topics will include SubProcedures, Subfiles, XML, RPG for Windows, i5/OS Version 6 Enhancements, CL and ILE CL, Embedded SQL, Web Development with RPG IV, Sending E-Mail from RPG IV, and a professional development seminar with Bob Tipton. As you might guess, IBM's George Farr will also be there, presenting on RPG IV and V6R1.

Once summer kicks into high gear, the 2008 IT Leaders Forum will come to Denver July 20-23. In terms of full disclosure, this is a System iNetwork event, which also means you'll get a chance to meet and attend sessions with System iNEWS magazine technical editors Mel Beckman, Paul Conte, and Bob Tipton. In addition, Gartner's John Enck, IBM's Doug Mack and Bob Cancilla, ASNA's Roger Pence, and Synergy Connects' Dave Ellison -- among others -- will deliver sessions designed to tackle the industry's toughest issues.

Gartner's John Enck, by the way, will launch the conference with a presentation called "The Future of Server Technology." For those who are interested in planning for and managing change around server technology -- i5/OS on a blade? Windows, Linux, and virtualization? -- this session will be a primer for the next five years.

Posted by cmaxcer on February 26, 2008 at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

February 20, 2008 7:32 AM

COMMON on the Brain

I'm starting to look forward to COMMON -- of course, the registration materials and flight arrangements are a big part of that, but more to the point: COMMON's 2008 Annual Meeting and Exposition is coming, and at such a critical time in the life of the System i! If you take a look back at the year immediately following last year's main COMMON conference, a lot has changed. IBM reorganized and then reorganized again, tweaking its management for good measure. IBM will deliver i5/OS on a blade, and IBM's BladeCenter is becoming more and more strategic to the company and SMBs around the world. V6R1 will be shiny and new, not much more than a week old when COMMON kicks off March 30, and there have been so many acquisitions in the System i world that the COMMON Exposition must certainly be a little leaner than in years past.

With IBM's reorganization looming, I'm wondering what IBM's participation is going to look like. Traditionally, COMMON is packed with IBMers, technology, and sessions -- IBM support for the conference is strong and obvious. Right now, though, it's hard to say which executives from IBM are even going to show up. The COMMON website doesn't even list who is going to give the keynote presentation. Here's a snip from the COMMON site:

The Annual Meeting will kickoff on Sunday, March 30th, with the Opening Session featuring a Keynote Speaker, followed by four days of leading-edge i5/OS education, closing with the fun and exciting iSocial Main Event on Thursday, April 3rd.

". . . featuring a Keynote Speaker" . . . yeah, you read that right. Interesting times indeed. Mark Shearer, who was previously the general manager of the IBM System i Division, is now vice president of marketing for IBM's Business Systems unit. He seems like a fairly obvious candidate for a significant speaking role at COMMON's Opening Session, but then again, what about Jim Stallings, who's leading the Enterprise Systems group? Or Erich Clementi, who's leading the Business Systems group? Or perhaps the most likely executive yet -- Ross Mauri, who's leading the System p, System i, and Linux on Power platform unit for IBM . . . might he be there?

Are you seeing the keynote problem that I'm seeing here? Last year, IBM had Shearer and an entire group of people dedicated more or less solely to the System i. Now, judging by the reorganization, it's hard to see how any of IBM's executives would be the most obvious person for a keynote. And if not IBM, who then? An inspirational speaker from the professional speaking circuit? Perhaps.

Either way, IBM has an opportunity to get in front of its most loyal and dedicated customers come March 30. I'm intensely curious as to how IBM is going to take advantage of this opportunity. How will the company will shape its messages and characterize its efforts -- and reveal the future direction of the System i world?

Posted by cmaxcer on February 20, 2008 at 7:32 AM | Comments (8)

February 8, 2008 12:59 PM

Ten Months Later -- Still Want Componentized WDSc?

Back in March of 2007, George Farr, who was the IBM solution manager of System i development tools at the time but is now the IBM Rational worldwide product manager for System i tools and compilers, started dropping hints about a new plan from IBM to break WDSc into components. The basic premise seemed to be to give System i shops the app dev tools they actually needed and wanted to use to do their jobs rather than bundle some features into advanced editions that pushed costs too high for shops that didn't really need all the bells and whistles.

The biggest customer concerns focused on Screen Designer and Application Diagram Viewer, which were announced as part of WDSc 7.0 Advanced Edition. Now, along with V6R1, so much has changed. IBM has added Rational Developer for System i (RDi), which is a new product targeted at System i developers for edit/compile/debug, and RDi SOA, which adds functionality for programming for the web --- including EGL, into which IBM seems to be breathing new life. HATS for 5250 now contains both HATS and WebFacing all in one product. So there are lots of new bundles and choices for System i app dev pros. For details, check out our System iNEWS interview with Farr in "IBM Changes System i App Dev Tools in V6R1." IBM offers more specifics on an IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform for System i page online that has lots of useful information and links but remains a bit confusing.

In any event, in April of 2007, we conducted a totally unscientific poll on SystemiNetwork.com. Here are the results:

Would you use componentized features of WDSc if they were available?

• Yes. Bring on stand-alone components for Screen Designer and Application Diagrammer -- 39 percent.
• No. I use PDM and SEU -- 46 percent.
• No. I'm happy with everything in the free version of WDSc-- 8 percent.
• No. We need the features of WDSc Advanced Edition and are willing to pay for them -- 3 percent.
• No. We use third-party tools -- 4 percent.

Now that these new "components" are nearly here -- they'll GA March 21 -- has IBM nailed the app dev tools model?

Speaking of Components. . .

An interesting point that Farr brought up in the interview mentioned above is that IBM's Rational group will be able, with this new model, to better understand which products its i5/OS-using customers actually use and want. This in turn will help the IBM business unit better understand where it's going to throw development resources for enhancements and support. This would, I imagine, also give Farr some leverage within the IBM Rational organization -- he'll be able to point to sales and usage data as a way to help get what he wants done. He didn't tell me this, by the way, but if I were working as part of a larger software development organization, I'd look to utilize any hard evidence I could to prove the needs of my particular department.

Posted by cmaxcer on February 8, 2008 at 12:59 PM | Comments (10)

February 4, 2008 7:17 AM

Lock-In Legacy or Lasting Growth: Today's Defining Moment

Today the System i world is poised in a defining moment: IBM is reorganizing, blades represent a radical new way of deploying i5/OS (Where's the "system"?), and IBM's Rational Application Development Tools division has more power than ever over the direction of -- for good and bad -- System i application development. Plus, there's V6R1, which comes with some seriously great features. There's opportunity here both given and stolen by IBM.

First, IBM can only do so much to foster the success of the System i. Whether the company has done enough is a question we can leave for another day. Market pressures and trends have certainly shaped our landscape, sometimes against the will of System i pros who have been fighting back an ever-creeping desert in the face of sandy winds. Sometimes, though, System i pros have been accidentally culpable in the changes.

I want to share an excerpt from an Industry Report I wrote, "Sharks or Margaritas? Exploring the App-Dev Solution Decision", which appeared in last month's issue of System iNEWS magazine:

The Seven Steps to a Lock-in Legacy

The biggest risk lies in the chance of becoming obsolete due to inaction. Here's how dormancy is shaking out in some organizations:

1. Line-of-business applications (ERP and homegrown) are run on the System i.
   
2. System i managers/programmers fail to upgrade their skills and/or buy third-party tools to develop GUI-based front ends and new, modern-looking applications — portals, BI, B2B, or even just specific applications, rich client or otherwise, for basic business needs.
   
3. Upper-management officials see a history of green-screen applications and little else coming out of the System i group.
   
4. Upper-management leaders believe that neither the System i nor the "i" development team is capable of operating modern GUI apps well.
   
5. Windows-based applications seem inexpensive enough, and the Windows side of the IT group is ready and willing to expand its level of responsibility . . . or a Windows job is contracted out.
   
6. At some point, the organization becomes split between the System i group and, for example, the .NET group.
   
7. System i professionals support and maintain legacy code while other app-dev professionals build new applications.
   

In these scenarios, the inaction of programmers and System i managers leads to a legacy lock-in that's hard to break. This is bad for System i enthusiasts, and it's terrible for the System i ecosystem.

The reason I bring this up again is that because i5/OS can now live on an IBM BladeCenter rather than on a System i, this fact may show up in long-time System i-based organizations. When it does, will it be to simply house a workload that will never change or will it be strategic? Will it better enable and empower the System i pro to say, "Hey, we're playing on the same field again with AIX, Linux, and Windows . . . here's what we can do with i5/OS and our applications."

The legendary power of the "integrated system" will likely be subsumed by the BladeCenter model . . . and I wonder how i5/OS and System i-based applications will fare and whether System i pros around the world can seize the day?

Posted by cmaxcer on February 4, 2008 at 7:17 AM | Comments (6)