It's been months since IBM announced one of the most groundbreaking changes to the System i world — the move to consolidate System p with System i. IBM prefers the term "unify" over "consolidate," but still, don't we all realize that the true nature of the wordplay remains to be seen? Since IBM reported all Power System-related financial revenue (including IBM i running on POWER6-based servers) to Wall Street under the System p brand name, I've got to say that consolidate seems to be a bit more apt.
Despite the semantic games IBM wants to play as it shapes its messages, I see the move as not only inevitable but also one that brings more good than bad. But to not recognize a world of new challenges is akin to jamming our collective heads in the sand. Then again, the same goes for recognizing a world of new opportunities, because all Power Systems ship from Rochester full of new, possible opportunities.
Reaching Out
To get at the heart of the challenges and opportunities, I reached out to a variety of industry experts — an independent analyst, a president of the most influential i-focused user group, an up-and-coming young and intensely active developer, a college professor, and a sales director for the largest System i/IBM i reseller in North America, as well as a pair of longtime System i professionals. Their responses are surprisingly diverse — and at the same time — right on the mark.
I asked a two-part question: Now that IBM has officially converged the System i and p brands and renamed i5/OS to IBM i, what do you think is the next big challenge or opportunity for System i/IBM i customers? What about for IBM and the IBM i-focused industry in general?
And here's what they had to say.
Charles King, Principal Analyst for Pund-IT
To my mind, the biggest challenge for i-loving data center pros will be to continue clearly defining the value of the platform to IT-purchasing decision makers. There's a simple reason for this: It's easier for many or even most people to get their heads around a branded platform/box than it is to understand the unique qualities of a server operating system. Now that i is simply one of three (along with AIX and Linux) OS choices for Power platform solutions, it's critically important for data center pros to clearly communicate the unique value i brings to their IT operations and greater businesses.
IBM and i partners, including ISVs, VARs, and integration consultants, will play critical roles in [the communication] process. The benefits of the converged i and p platforms to IBM are obvious enough: simplified, streamlined, and lower cost development and manufacturing processes. The end result of this model is that the company can continue to deliver substantially improved i performance and innovation at competitive prices. What IBM needs to do is help customers and partners understand how the unified Power platform helps them accrue benefits as well.
Randy Dufault, President of COMMON
In the recent past, the technology industry dynamic took many shops down a path of very high complexity, resulting in some cases in poor reliability. Now with the integrated Power Systems family, there is a whole new set of wrenches in the toolbox, clubs in the bag, colors on the palette — whatever metaphor fits — that I think can help fix some of those complexity and reliability problems.
The key challenge for Power Systems business users now is to figure out how best to leverage all the performance and capability they have at their disposal in a way that makes things better for their businesses. For longtime users of i, that probably means boning up on AIX and Power Linux. For longtime users of AIX, that probably means understanding the great value that i brings to the technology table. For everyone it probably means understanding the unique capabilities of the PowerVM software stack.
Even though much of this is new, I think the time-tested mechanisms of informal networking with other users and formal learning from our peers are still the best ways to meet this challenge. There certainly is a lot of stuff to learn and a lot of stuff to learn how to do.
There is another challenge for Power Systems users too, and that is making sure that IBM is developing things in a way that solves problems, and solves them in a way that ultimately makes meeting the technology challenge easier. As the traditional lines between IBM products blur and ultimately go away, we as a community need to make sure that the unique value propositions we have grown to depend on, especially heritage i values, remain, improve, and start to filter into all aspects of the Power Systems products.
Aaron Bartell, Software Programmer/Developer and Consultant at Krengel Technology (and of MowYourLawn.com fame)
I think the challenge IBM i customers face today is learning the best route for modernization. As I see it, IBM is out there to boil the ocean versus meeting specific needs for a specific platform. EGL [Enterprise Generation Language] is a prime example of this because IBM is trying to come up with a single language for all platforms. The only issue with this is that you lose many of each platform's benefits, because EGL runs in its own virtual machine — Java Virtual Machine with Tomcat or WebSphere Application Server — which entices IBM i shops to move toward cheaper hardware and OS combinations (i.e., Linux/Windows).
On another modernization challenge point, we are seeing adoption of things like SOA taken to extremes that don't make sense — for example, writing an XML web service to be consumed by a program on the same machine written in the same language. This will have negative return on investment [ROI] unless the web service can be reused by another platform/partner in the future. But by that point, the whole premise of the web service won't have been for external use, so it will most likely need to be reworked. This always happens with new technologies as people try to embrace the snot out of them versus taking a measured and ROI-based approach. The challenge to shops will be separating the meat from the flabby fat.
The same is true for all the different technologies taking hold, from Adobe Flex and Microsoft Silverlight to Sun's JavaFX and lower-level stuff like XAML. What does a company adopt? Do they stick with the tried and true — but ugly — green screens or venture out into the subpar application set known as HTML+CSS+JavaScript?
If a title could be given to the next three to five years of IT strategy, I would term it "The process of careful and measured embracing of technology for user interface modernization."
Keng Siau, PhD, E. J. Faulkner Chair Professor of MIS for University of Nebraska-Lincoln
I see dangers and I see opportunities. The System i/IBM i "marriage" with System p and Linux brings tremendous opportunities for System i/IBM i customers, with easy pricing and enhanced application choices. Customers should explore the Power Systems and capitalize on the potential of System p and Linux.
I think the big challenge for System i/IBM i customers is to ensure IBM is continuing to pay close attention to System i/IBM i now that it is part of the Power Systems. It is easy to be neglected in a big family, especially when one is not the child who brings in the most revenue. System i/IBM i used to have dedicated salespeople and staff prior to the "marriage" with System p and Linux. Will System i/IBM i continue to receive tender loving care from IBM and good "nutrients" to continue to evolve now that it has to compete for attention in the Power Systems family? We would not want IBM i to become the adopted child of the family.
What about for IBM and the IBM i-focused industry in general?
IBM needs to immediately reverse the declining revenue trend of System i/IBM i that has been happening for a few consecutive quarters. If the trend continues, the confidence of System i/IBM i customers will be shaken, and the future of IBM i-focused industry will be questioned. IBM i needs to be forward looking rather than try to resolve the problems faced by major customers and partners yesterday or today. IBM needs to take the lead, plan strategically, and position IBM i for the future (not yesterday or today).
The visibility of IBM i, now embedded in Power Systems, needs to be further strengthened and enhanced. The IBM Academic Initiative is an excellent way to ensure that students and faculty are aware and familiar with IBM i and Power Systems. The IBM Academic Initiative typically focuses on technical programs and training the next generation of IBM i and Power Systems technicians, programmers, administrators, and so on. Recently, the IBM Academic Initiative opened a new dimension by working with business schools to expose business students and executives to IBM i and Power Systems. This is vital to the future of IBM i and Power Systems. I have attended COMMON a few times, and one of the constant questions from participants is how to make sure their business managers and executives appreciate IBM i. Thus, it is not surprising that the COMMON Europe's Top Concerns 2008 survey revealed that "making management understand the value of System i" is the latest Golden Concern. I strongly believe there is a high correlation between the success of the IBM Academic Initiative and the future success of IBM i and Power Systems.
Stan Staszak, Director of System i/x Products for Sirius
IBM's biggest challenge is going to be not "diluting" its i marketing strategy now that i and p have converged into the common Power Systems platform. For the record, I think the Power Systems convergence has been received well by customers. IBM needs to raise awareness that i runs on this exciting and sophisticated POWER6-based server platform, but [IBM] also needs to continue to focus on the inherent strengths of the IBM i operating system — integration, ease of use, reliability, security, and so on — and some of its benefits in specific industry verticals like banking, finance, manufacturing, distribution, and gaming. One big advantage that IBM i has is that it is a truly unique operating system, so it has some key differentiators over other Unix-based platforms and Wintel.
The flipside to this is that we need to maintain and grow the IBM i skill set in the market. To that end, IBM needs to continue investing in the Academic Initiative. In my humble opinion, working with colleges and universities to promote an i-based curriculum and working with businesses on job placement is probably the most important key to future success. We need to ensure that there are plenty of i resources in the industry so CIOs feel comfortable about their platform investment choice. IBM also needs to continue working with ISVs to port applications to and maintain software on the i.
Nathan Andelin, President of Relational Data Corporation
The merger of i and p brands and operating groups was a good move, along with rebranding the IBM i operating system and unbundling software from hardware. The previously higher price on IBM i hardware and bundled solutions put IBM at odds with many customers who sensed that IBM was taking undue advantage of their investment in legacy technology. The change is good for IBM i and the people who invest in it.
I think it still makes sense to move more workloads from the desktop and thick client/server applications back to servers with thin and rich clients, using web technologies. And I'd go so far as to say this is the greatest opportunity for the IBM i platform. IBM i is remarkably well suited for this, but not really well positioned from a cultural and marketing perspective.
The greatest challenges facing IBM i are from interests and technologies that are based on distributed architecture, which still hasn't crested yet. At some point, I expect distributed architecture to recede. Microsoft is likely to push another major paradigm shift on developers that will make obsolete a lot of applications, and may be the thing that triggers a shift back to centralized architecture.
IBM as a whole is well positioned either way, with good solutions for centralized as well as distributed architecture, but I'm putting my money on centralized architecture, rich user interfaces, and native IBM i interfaces.
Again, I'd just like to emphasize that there's a lot of exciting innovation and more opportunity in hosted solutions, including Software as a Service, web technology, and reaching out to global audiences.
David Vasta, System i Administrator and System i Addict Blogger
The next big challenge is still not in customers' hands — it's in IBM's. Now don't get me wrong, the customer has plenty to do, but IBM has the burden of proof, and to date it hasn't shown much evidence to prove that it's serious about a POWER-focused platform.
I do think the renaming is a positive move. I like it just being called IBM i. IBM did make it clear that it was going to name it something that was worth the trouble. I never understood the AS/400 name and I never liked it, either. With the AS/400, there was too much to explain, and it just sounded old. People outside of IT thought it was old, people in IT thought it was old, and it came across from the era that the System/36 is from. And according to my age now, that is old.
The move to call the servers p, x, i, and z was smart but complicated. Now we look around, and the name is right where it should be. The IBM i can be an icon of sorts, and if IBM plays its hand properly, it could really sell the one platform, many OS kits that it should have moved to five or six years ago.
Right now the world is primed to use IBM i, AIX, and Linux all on a single hardware platform, and the biggest question for me is, does IBM understand that? Does it understand that, in a two-hour session in Nashville last spring, it merged three very distinctive communities into one hardware platform? We all have a common denominator now, and I don't think IBM is communicating that yet, and I really don't know what it is waiting for.
The other part is where are the IBM i customers right now? I think they are waiting for IBM to tell them where to go. I think most IBM i customers are loyal and trust IBM but get tired of big changes like this only to find out later the only thing that changed was the name. IBM needs to start helping customers get their hands on the new POWER platform. It needs to give away Linux, and it needs to let IBM i shops investigate AIX. It may be doing it now, but IBM is not talking about it, and communication and marketing is where IBM — year after year — has failed to communicate the things it is doing to CIOs and others in charge of infrastructure.
Lastly, IBM needs to ask COMMON and the other user groups for AIX and Linux on Power to merge into one user group based on POWER. IBM has to build a community around POWER, and if that is done, the rest will fall into place. IBM has to build the community. The IBM i has a fanatical following, and [IBM] has always played that down a bit where it would serve [IBM] well to whip [the following] into a frenzy and see what happens. I know AIX and Linux both have cultlike followings, but you don't find all three in many shops.
Most IBM i shops are IBM i and Windows or AIX and Windows. In some cases you see AIX and Linux, but Linux is not on Power. To find all three in one shop is rare but would be exciting. IBM needs to share those stories.
It's no easy task, and in the end, the IBM i customer wins. The TCO [total cost of ownership] drops, and ROI goes up, and the IBM i becomes a household name along with the idea behind POWER.
Chris Maxcer is the news editor for System iNEWS and SystemiNetwork.com, and he can be reached at chris.maxcer@penton.com. "What surprised me most," he notes, "was the diversity of opinion that marks the challenges and opportunities that these experts shared. If there’s one point that resonated the most—and there were many that were right on key—it’s Nathan Andelin’s point that IBM is remarkably well-suited to capitalize on server-based workloads with thin and rich clients, but at the same time may not be really well-positioned from a culture and marketing perspective."