Coming Soon: IBM i Milestone and Architecture Webcast
Steve Will writes about an upcoming webcast where you can watch an extended version of a popular presentation, as well as 12 years of IBM i.
There is a big IBM i milestone approaching, though you might not have known it. What is it? Keep reading!
There is also a webcast coming up – one I’d like you to be aware of. What is it? Keep reading!
The two are somewhat related.
The Webcast
A few years ago, I built a presentation about the evolution of the IBM i architecture. I created the presentation because there are people in the community who insist that “IBM i is just AS/400 with a different name.” Them’s fightin’ words.
OK, not “fightin’” maybe. But clearly a challenge.
I decided I had to create a presentation to describe the evolution of the IBM i operating system architecture—from its very beginning (before AS/400) through the current release of IBM i.
After I presented it at a COMMON conference, Tom Huntington from HelpSystems suggested we create a webcast so that more people could get the chance to hear it. His marketing folks decided to call it something like “IBM i—it’s not just AS/400.” At first, I balked at the title. Why? Because in general, I don’t like using the AS/400 name when I’m talking about today’s platform. But in this case, the title accurately described the message I was trying to get across.
So, for the past several years, I’ve been doing a version of that presentation in a webcast sponsored by HelpSystems. This year, the webcast will happen on July 16. If you’d like to attend, here’s a registration link.
Each year, I have to revise this presentation. I do so partially because the original presentation was over 90 minutes in length, but I never have that much time. Consequently, each time I deliver it, I need to get as much as possible into the “fewer than 90” minutes I have. This time, however, HelpSystems has set it up as a 75-minute webcast, so I can present more of it than I normally do. Hurray!
Of course, I also have to revise it every year, because over time, bits of the architecture evolve. So, this year, I will have the chance to restore some of the history of the evolution, and I will get the chance to add some more recent information. (Wow, this is sounding like a lot of work! I had better get started!)
The point is: If you have heard the webcast in the past, this version will be longer and will have more—past and present—than you may have heard before. If you have not heard it, you will get as complete a tour through the evolution of IBM i as I’ve ever done. From pre-AS/400 to IBM i 7.4. An architecture evolution that shows how much we owe to the System/38, System/36 and AS/400, but also shows how much we’ve added and changed over the years. I hope you join us.