It's time for you to catch up with all that's going on in the IBM i world. This edition features a few stories reflecting on the industry as a whole and brings interesting perspectives from across the marketplace. It's always good to take step back and look at the bigger picture, so let's begin.

For Sale: IBM i Is A Buyer's Market
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

• I think it is maybe a hundred or a thousand times easier to buy a company with a set of established customers than it is to acquire them one at a time by creating products and competing.
• This is the ethos of private equity and venture capital alike, and it is something that has been normal for decades in Silicon Valley but is still, comparatively speaking, relatively new in the IBM i market.
• This may be the nature of things to consolidate--look at General Motors, for instance, or Fiat Chrysler or Ford Motor Company, for that matter--but it still feels a little unusual watching it happen time and time again.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh060616-story01.html

Open Source on IBM i Gets Hot Hot Hot
by Aaron Bartell

• This spring has been a great one for open source on IBM i, but things especially took flight at COMMON's 2016 Annual Spring Conference in New Orleans.
• There were 43 people in attendance, including IBMers Steve Will, Tim Rowe, Tony Cairns, Kevin Adler, and Jesse Gorzinski. Last year, there were roughly 12.
• What else is going on in the IBM i open-source community that you might not be aware of? Let's dive in with a bunch of short snippets of activity...

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/analysis-of-news-events/open-source-on-ibm-i-gets-hot-hot-hot.html

Talking IBM i Ecosystem With HelpSystems CEO Chris Heim
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

• There has been a flurry of acquisitions in the IBM i marketplace in the past several years--you might even call it a blizzard.
• HelpSystems has built one of the largest software business dedicated to the IBM i platform. Infor could have a larger one, and Vision Solutions might, too, but they are all private companies so we can't tell.
• Chris Heim, CEO at HelpSystems, which has done a lot of acquisitions in the past decade and a half, reached out to us to chat about these changes and his company's place in the market.

Source: http://www.itjungle.com/tfh/tfh061316-story01.html

What’s So Special About the IBM i Community?
by Brian May

• I wish I knew everything about IBM i development, but I don’t. Luckily, I learned from the best in our industry. In fact, I still do! No one knows every nuance of development on our platform. Lucky for all of us, those who are experts in certain areas of our industry, myself included, love to share knowledge with others.
• A change is happening. I see it at every conference when I am presenting. I see it in my own office as I build my staff. I see it in discussion forums, emails I receive, and conversations with other IBM i experts. The new generation of IBM i developers is emerging.

Source: http://www.mcpressonline.com/commentary/what%E2%80%99s-so-special-about-the-ibm-i-community.html

Jon Paris on the 20th RPG & DB2 Summit and the Next Generation
by Paul Tuohy

• Paul talks to friend, mentor and colleague Jon Paris about the next generation of RPG programmers and if they can maintain existing code.
• Jon: We don't need RPG programmers, right as such. I am not saying by that that we should fire all the ones that exist. The point I'm trying to make is what we need is good business programmers and whether they know RPG or not when we start out, that is pretty much irrelevant I think.

Source: http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/ibmi/trends/iTALK-WITH-TUOHY/Jon-Paris/

And all we've got for this week. What did you think of their perspectives on the industry? Do you agree that it has stabilized and slowly growing? As always, let us know what you think in the comments below!