IBM steps up commitment to midmarket

IBM Friday promised to give its midrange iSeries servers a boost, saying that it would provide $1 billion in services and support to thousands of software partners over the next few years to help accelerate the development of applications and tools for the iSeries platform.

Big Blue has been stressing its commitment to the iSeries for the past couple of years, launching television and magazine ads extolling the reliability and flexibility of the platform, formerly the AS/400. Last year, IBM advanced the hardware piece of the puzzle, rolling out iSeries servers based on its Power5 processor.

Now the focus is on hardening software support for the boxes, says Doug Fulmer, worldwide sales executive, iSeries e-business infrastructure at IBM. Today, the iSeries can support i5/OS – an updated OS/400 operating system – AIX, Windows and Linux, giving users greater flexibility. In addition, the Power5-based iSeries share features such as micropartitioning and IBM’s virtualization engine with Big Blue’s p5 Unix servers.

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

IBM Friday promised to give its midrange iSeries servers a boost, saying that it would provide $1 billion in services and support to thousands of software partners over the next few years to help accelerate the development of applications and tools for the iSeries platform.

Big Blue has been stressing its commitment to the iSeries for the past couple of years, launching television and magazine ads extolling the reliability and flexibility of the platform, formerly the AS/400. Last year, IBM advanced the hardware piece of the puzzle, rolling out iSeries servers based on its Power5 processor.

Now the focus is on hardening software support for the boxes, says Doug Fulmer, worldwide sales executive, iSeries e-business infrastructure at IBM. Today, the iSeries can support i5/OS – an updated OS/400 operating system – AIX, Windows and Linux, giving users greater flexibility. In addition, the Power5-based iSeries share features such as micropartitioning and IBM’s virtualization engine with Big Blue’s p5 Unix servers.

The effort now is on spurring innovation among software partners to develop applications and tools that bring modern capabilities to the iSeries platform, Fulmer says. To support that effort IBM is promising up to $50,000 in services and support to software partners and tool developers, including technical support and marketing help. Fulmer says 2,500 ISVs already have signed up for the program.

IBM also unveiled its Charter for iSeries Innovation, designed to outline its commitment to the midmarket platform.

“Yes, you can still run OS/400 and RPG and Cobol. And you can run Java and you can run Windows and you can run AIX and you can run Linux on Power or on Intel all on one physical platform,” Fulmer says. “But what this is about is trying to bring together applications for those various environments.”

“What the customer really wants … is the freedom to get the best application they can get their hands on independent of the operating system … and then run it on a single piece of hardware,” he says.

Harry Johns, manager of Insurance IS at AAA in Charlotte, N.C., has been using the iSeries platform since it was codenamed the SilverLake Project before its official debut as the AS/400 in the late 1980s. He says he’s happy to see IBM stress its commitment to the server.

“One of the things that historically has been an issue with iSeries was the rumors that everybody was switching to Windows-based servers and the AS/400 was going to go away,” he says. “To me this focus from IBM to support [ISVs] developing specifically for the iSeries is good news for people like me that are just sold on this platform.”

The additional software support will provide users with increased capabilities, says Johns, who runs AAA’s insurance system on the iSeries. Today, Johns does more XML and Java development on the iSeries but says when a utility is needed, his staff typically has written it themselves. There are tools available, but in most cases it’s turned out to be more cost effective to do things inhouse, he says.