I met Dr Frank at last week’s 2-day NiSUG (IBM i user group) in Windsor, England, where I also met other IBM’ers Alison Butterill and her entourage from IBM headquarters in Armonk, USA.

As always IBM talked a good talk and they told us what’s happening in the industry. Cloud, Cloud, Mobile, Cloud and Mobile. Actually IBM is a bit late to notice the obvious, however the audience nodded happily in agreement.

This time round Alison who is a great presenter told the IBM i gathering (sponsored by QSL) that IBM i sales were flat over the past year. Alison tells her management this a great achievement whilst HP and Oracle server sales were down over the same period.

Alison also showed an internal IBM roadmap which showed the IBM i with a life expectancy beyond 2025 (at least another 11 years), which demonstrates IBM’S commitment to the IBM i ecosystem of ISVs and customers alike, which in turn is expected to provide confidence to invest in the development of new apps and updates to existing applications.

I’ll be interested to see what IBM’s next step is as part of this road map, what do you think it will be?