Looking Back at IBM i Application Development in 2011

It's that time of year when people traditionally look back over the past 12 months and attempt, perhaps, to extrapolate from that what might come to pass in the next 12. Problem is that if the past 12 months have taught us anything it is that we have no idea what may happen next! For a start we were convinced that long before now the IBM Rational would have realized the folly of its ways and removed the charges for RPG Open Access--no such luck. But at least there's a really strong rumor that we can expect to see that happen before the spring. Please, pretty please. We'd hate to be back here again next year bemoaning the fact that it didn't happen.

That said, time for a few words on some of the more interesting trends that have emerged over the year.

Free and Almost Free
Of particular note is the increase in the number of vendors in the iBM i space who now offer their products (or at least a base version of them) for free. Still others have abandoned the notion of charging for the software itself and instead simply charge for maintenance. This is a trend we expect to see continue, and indeed grow, over the coming months. We've already heard rumors of at least one vendor that's considering offering a free "community edition" of its product. If indeed that comes to pass it has the potential to significantly shake up at least one segment of the market. 

Mobile
Mobile this, mobile that. Some days we think we may scream if we hear the word just one more time. Luckily this is a trend that makes sense. Sure lots of folks are jumping on the bandwagon, but it does make perfect sense in many cases. In particular the availability of GPS capability in most mobile devices makes tracking the whereabouts of folks such as delivery drivers affordable for even the more modest-sized business. Knowing who is where and therefore being able to re-route them to make an emergency pick-up (for example) can increase efficiency and improve customer relations. We'll be having a mobile focus again this spring at the RPG & DB2 Summit, and we're hoping this time we'll have a chance to attend a few of the sessions ourselves. Now that we have both iOS devices (iPad and iPod touch) and an Android phone we’re more and more interested in what can be done with these little devils.

Upgrading Applications and Skills
This is a long overdue trend in our opinion. Admittedly as our business involves consulting and training on modernization topics we have a vested interest, but we're seeing more and more of clients looking to enhance the skills of their development teams and make the most of the application inventory they already have. An increasing demand exists to make IBM i data available to applications on other platforms. This is a welcome trend, because two or three years ago all we were seeing was folks busily exporting data from the IBM i, manipulating it on some other box and then re-importing it. Having the i remain at the heart of the process is good to see. This kind of updating makes sense in these tight economic times. Why not make the most of what you have--both in terms of personnel and applications.

We're still not seeing as many people actively modernizing their code base as we'd like. We still see far too much of the "if it ain't broke ..." mentality but perhaps in time. It has always been a mystery to us that rather than invest $x in re-engineering their software, management will pay $y (where y is typically 20 percent or so of x) over and over and over again. And for each iteration the cost of y rises and rises. Admittedly it's tough to quantify the cost/benefit of re-engineering. All we know is that, of those we have worked with, every single one wishes wish they'd done it sooner!

Did we miss some trends you've spotted? Let us know. In the meantime, we wish all of our readers a healthy and wealthy New Year.

Comments

[Aaron Bartell]

One trend I would like to add is hosting traditionally local things in the cloud. I know many people have issues with this because of the various risks, but to one who can mitigate risk and yet embrace the cloud, well, they shall win out in the end because of cost savings.

I full heartedly agree on the mobile front. That space will continue to grow exponentially in the future on a variety of fronts.

For example, last night I learned that one of my kids wasn't doing so hot with telling time on non-digital clocks. Despite my best efforts to teach him myself he still was hit or miss. So I headed over to the the Apple App store on my iPad and started searching for "learn how to tell time" type apps. I found one in about 30 seconds and about 1 minute later it was installed. I handed it to my son who was able to learn their approach to navigation with ease, but the coolest part was that he couldn't put it down for over 2hrs and by the time we made him turn it off for supper he was an ace at telling time. Turns out that this particular learning app gave you a virtual fish to put in your fish tank each time you provided the correct answer three times in a row. My son couldn't put it down! Brilliant. I wouldn't be surprised to find tablets extensively used in K-12 education in the near future.

AaronBartell.com