An Integrated Partner Ecosystem Supports IBM i
Highlighting the business partners and ISVs that have supported and strengthened the IBM i ecosystem for the past 35 years
By Evelyn Hoover
Ask any 10 people what makes the IBM i community as a whole, and the business partner ecosystem as a subset, stand out and you are likely to get 10 different answers. However, the answers will likely fall under common themes with integration at the forefront.
After all, the “i” in “IBM i” stands for integration. The OS provides an integrated database, integrated security features and more. But the integration extends beyond the technology to the various ecosystems that support the platform, including the vast ecosystem of partners that support IBM i.
Largely because of the commoditized nature of many other platforms, the partners that work with them are mostly interested in making a sale and moving on, not always forming long-term relationships with customers. On the other hand, IBM i partners are in it for the long haul, establishing lasting integrated relationships with customers.
“The partners have been excellent at understanding the value of what IBM i and Power Systems bring, explaining that to customers, helping them to find justification for moving forward,” says Steve Will, IBM Distinguished Engineer and IBM i CTO. “And that's been crucial to the value of IBM i in the marketplace. Our success only happens because there are solutions on our platform that help people run business and there are business partners who help those clients move forward and take advantage of it.”
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Partner Perspectives
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The “i” in “IBM i” stands for integration. What value does IBM i’s ability to integrate bring to your organization?
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Where do you see the IBM i platform in the future?
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How has the IBM i platform contributed to your organization’s success?
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“We [take full advantage of] the integration of different technologies on the platform. It is what customers expect us to do. We have customers coming from other platforms that are amazed at the ease of integration between the database, operating system, open source tooling and older applications. We sometimes forget by looking back instead of forward that we have one of the most innovative platforms that exists.”
—Koen Decorte, CD-Invest NV
Where do you see the IBM i platform in the future?
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How has the IBM i platform contributed to your organization’s success?
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The “i” in “IBM i” stands for integration. What value does IBM i’s ability to integrate bring to your organization?
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“IBM i has allowed us to develop our products that can be used worldwide in an array of industries. We expect its success will continue to grow with the new generation of developers.”
—Cyndi Bemis, ProData Computer Services Inc.
How has the IBM i platform contributed to your organization’s success?
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The “i” in “IBM i” stands for integration. What value does IBM i’s ability to integrate bring to your organization?
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Where do you see the IBM i platform in the future?
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“As a system integrator, our company has been accompanying our customers on this platform for many years. Everything about IBM i is innovative.”
—Stefan Pelzer, PROFI Engineering Systems AG
Loyal and Passionate IBM i Partners
No matter what type of solution a customer seeks, from an ERP solution to a labeling solution to a hardware upgrade to a modernization solution, to a cybersecurity product, etc., between IBM and the partner community, it’s available on IBM i. Many of the partners have been on the platform throughout much of its 35-year history.
“I'd say it's a very loyal ecosystem, to be honest. I mean, you've got so many hardware vendors and software vendors and ISVs that have been around seemingly forever,” says Michael Ash, president, TL Ashford. “There's something for everybody. The expertise on the platform supports the ever-changing business needs.”
Back in 1998, before his 16th birthday, Ash started working at the company his father founded, performing office tasks and listening in on sales and tech support calls. After he graduated college, he really dug in, working with clients, attending conferences and supporting customers. Today he leads the forms labeling company.
If you ask Pete Massiello, president of iTech Solutions Group, an IBM Gold Business Partner, what makes the partner ecosystem unique, he’ll tell you it’s passion. “The business partners are passionate. They’re passionate about the technology, they’re passionate about their customers, they’re passionate about the platform,” he says.
Massiello started working on IBM i (then AS/400) in 1989, shortly after the platform debuted. After helping many companies upgrade their systems, he eventually decided to go into business as a consultant, later becoming a hardware business partner for IBM. Throughout his career, he has served as president of COMMON and is active in local user groups as well.
Passion and loyalty are also words Marcel Sarrasin, chief services officer and GM, transformation for Fresche Solutions, uses to describe the partner ecosystem. The customer base relies on the partners to innovate and drive the platform forward. “We’ve got this passionate, loyal business partner ecosystem that loves the platform just as much as the customers do,” he says.
Back in 2001, when Sarrasin took a job in tech support with BCD Software, he had no idea what an AS/400 was but he learned quickly. He stayed with BCD until it was acquired by Quadrant Software in 2014. Two years later, Quadrant was acquired by Fresche Solutions, which provides technology advisory, modernization, cloud hosting, security, and managed application and infrastructure support services for IBM i.
“The ecosystem has been pivotal in helping organizations running these business-critical systems. The efficiencies they’ve gained from what the ecosystem has built is a big driver and a big reason why they’ve been able to be so successful,” he adds
More Than Partners
While the loyal and passionate partners are important, it’s the integration among the partners, IBM and customers that work together to keep the platform vital.
IBM builds the technology, markets the platform and supports the many user groups worldwide. The partners sell the hardware, tools vendors’ solutions make the hardware more efficient and secure, application vendors provide ERP and financial back-office solutions and the customers who regularly provide IBM with requirements to ensure the platform continues to meet their needs.
“It’s a healthy ecosystem and a very big part of that ecosystem is how strong the people who use the platform feel about it and working with it,” says Tom Huntington, executive vice president of technical solutions at Fortra.
Huntington’s career mirrors the platform’s history almost exactly. He took a position with Help Systems 38 (later renamed Help Systems) porting System 38 products over to the AS/400 on June 27, 1988. In fact he remembers attending an AS/400 kickoff party in Minneapolis. “It was like a New Year’s Eve party,” he recalls. “It was a really cool launch.
35 Years of Innovations
Throughout its 35-year history, the IBM i has embraced change and evolved to keep pace with industry standards and client needs. Chief among those innovations has been the ability to support open source solutions. This has provided clients and partners with options for languages that have enabled modernization and attracted new developers to the platform.
“Open source has given clients the ability to integrate with things sitting in the cloud or other systems that are running in their environment,” says Christine McDowell, vice president of marketing at Fresche Solutions. McDowell’s introduction to the platform came at the young age of 19 when she took a job as a key punch operator for System 36 and System 38 in 1989 and became the company’s AS/400 system administrator within a year.
Another innovation McDowell feels is key is all of the work IBM has done from a database perspective, enabling AI architecture, making data accessible to clients, and simplifying reporting and analytics with Db2 Web Query. “Data is the cornerstone of AI, and we’re just starting to see the impact it can have,” she explains.
IBM continues to ensure the platform stays current with tech trends like cloud, SaaS and others while maintaining backwards compatibility so that older software continues to run on new models of Power Systems running the latest version of IBM i.
“I think a lot of times people on the IBM i take it for granted because IBM has gotten so good at integrating hardware and software updates and updates while still giving customers the ability to keep running older software,” Ash says.
Huntington agrees that backwards compatibility is important but he harkens back to his operational background and purports that work management is key: the commands that allow you to manipulate the work that’s being done on the system, where the jobs run, what memory pools they’re using. Going one better is the system’s ability to multitask, running LPARs or VMs with different levels of the OS on the same hardware
Legacy Isn’t a Bad Thing
While it is modern and current, many slap the “legacy” label on the platform. Massiello laughs when he hears that term applied to a platform that’s running entire companies.
Hear Pete Massiello discuss the value of legacy technology.
“Legacy means it’s proven; it works; it’s dependable. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s old,” he explains. “So the user interface may not be the sexiest thing, but that integrated database, integrated security, those are second to none.”