Welcome back to IBM i Pulse, your favorite IBM i news roundup. This week's edition features a lot of buzz surrounding the Open Source movement within the platform and we love that! We've been working hard to make Node.js work with our products and are sure glad our efforts are somewhat validated. Let's begin!

The AS/400 At 28: A HENRY, Not A DINK
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

• A lot of people get credit for the work that went into creating IBM midrange systems over the decades, and rightfully so since the creation of such machinery, including the hardware and the software, takes many hundreds or thousands of individuals with each successive generation.
• It is appropriate to think about them as the AS/400, the forebear of the current Power Systems IBM i system, turns 28.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh062016-story01.html

Advice For IBM i Shops: Balance The Old With The New
by Dan Burger

• Most C-level managers realize that progress is impossible without change. Yet making changes can be so damn difficult.
• How do companies with legacy IT systems change to keep up with progress?
• Too many executives miss the fact that they can use what they have to get what they want. Step one: Understand what you have. Executives that understand the IBM i platform have a big advantage over those who don't.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh062716-story02.html

TechTip: Open Source, Dipping Toes
by Aaron Bartell

• "At the end of the day, open source means community. It means IT professionals coming together and sharing information, ideas, and code. Will you participate?"
• I get daily updates from the LinkedIn IBM i OSS group. Being informed is the first step of being part of the IBM i open-source community. You can overcome the vast amounts of new terminology only by exposing yourself to it on a regular basis.

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/programming/techtip-open-source-dipping-toes.html

IBM i Skills Shortage A Barrier To Digital Transformation
by Alex Woodie

• Quick--what's the top barrier to achieving digital transformation in your shop? If you said "IBM i skills," then you're in good company.
• In a recent informal poll conducted by SoftLanding Systems, a majority of IBM i professionals cited a lack of IBM i skills (taken to mean RPG programming expertise in particular) as the number one impediment to implementing projects such as development of Web and mobile interfaces and electronic document management.
• "If you have a lot of core IBM i applications that need to be modified to support modernization initiatives," Fisher said, "if you've lost those IBM i skills over the years with people who have retired or are due to retire, then I guess it could make some sense in that respect."

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh071116-story02.html

IBM i Open Sourcerers 
by Dan Burger

• Development of the IBM i platform is not happening on its own island anymore. It's an integrated world.
• Open source will have a major impact in the future of business computing and what we see happening with IBM i support for Ruby, node.js, Python, and PHP is a preparation for the future.
• The IBM i open source community is taking shape, too. A group called IBM i OSS is approaching 400 members as of last week, according to the group's lead evangelist Bill Gravelle.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh071116-story03.html

And that's it for this edition of IBM i Pulse. If there was anything noteworthy that I missed, feel free to comment it below and I'll add it in! See you next time.