Hey, Where’s the IBM i? NY Times Explains IBM’s April 11th Announcement

Posted on by Joe Hertvik

Update (4/11/12): Just got comfirmation from IBM that the Power 7 nodes of IBM PureSystems support IBM i 6.1 and 7.1. So we can stand down on that one.

In one of many articles breaking news on IBM’s announcement tomorrow, the NY Times has a pretty decent overview article about tomorrow’s event and what IBM’s announcing. It’s called a PureSystem and according to NYT, it’s…

bundles of server hardware and software packaged in simplified systems, with setup and maintenance automated by intelligent software

So it’s being billed as a way to cut out computer system overhead by deploying systems quicker and making it easier to manage multiple servers in one place. Why, one could almost call it a “Magic Box”;-)

But being an old-time IBM i guy, one particular sentence jumped out at me. See if you can spot the omission here (emphasis mine).

The I.B.M. options include four operating system environments — Linux running on either Intel microprocessors or I.B.M.’s Power chips, I.B.M’s AIX and Microsoft’s Windows. And there are four choices of load-juggling, virtualization software including VMware (a unit of EMC), Red Hat’s KVM, Microsoft’s Hyper-V and I.B.M.’s PowerV.

Aside from the Times’ very weird punctuation of IBM, they must be counting Linux as two operating system choices because there ain’t no IBM i operating system listed here. I’m gonna assume the writer wasn’t the most technically literate guy in the world but omitting the IBM i from this story doesn’t exactly give me warm or fuzzy feelings.

Anyhow, you can read the whole story here.

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About Joe Hertvik

Joe is the owner of Hertvik Business Services, a service company providing written white papers, case studies, and other marketing content to computer industry companies. He is also a contributing editor for IT Jungle and has written the Admin Alert column for the past ten years. Follow Joe Hertvik on Twitter @JoeHertvik. Email Joe for a free quote on white papers, case studies, brochures, or other marketing materials.
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3 Responses to Hey, Where’s the IBM i? NY Times Explains IBM’s April 11th Announcement

  1. Scott J says:
    April 11, 2012 at 5:37 am

    Along with your blog entry, my newreader brought in about 20 new entries into IBM’s Redbooks. The titles all start with ‘IBM Flex System. After reading your blog I wondered if there was a connection to PureSystem. One of the Redbook Drafts is titled ‘IBM Flex System Products & Technology’. I only glanced thru it and found references to this new Flex System being the basis to PureSystem. The best part is that I did find this: “Choice of:
    – Operating system: AIX®, IBM i, Microsoft Windows, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, or
    SUSE Linux Enterprise Server”.
    So, if you count Linux once, you get the 4 OS talked about AND one of them IS the i!!
    Lets keep our fingers crossed.

    • Joe Hertvik says:
      April 11, 2012 at 8:03 am

      Thanks, Scott. Just got comfirmation from IBM that the Power 7 nodes of IBM PureSystems support IBM i 6.1 and 7.1. So we can stand down on that one. Updated article to reflect this.

  2. Alex Woodie says:
    April 11, 2012 at 3:02 pm

    Love the “Magic Box” reference Joe! No doubt, this new PureSystem is super Extreme….

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