iPulse 2011 Survey Results
The second annual iPulse Survey, organized by LANSA, ran during October 2011 and was promoted to the global IBM i community via email, social media and publicized by leading industry media outlets like Intelligencer Magazine, IT Jungle and MC Press Online.
This year’s survey attracted just over 1,500 participants worldwide, which is around 10% down from last year’s numbers. Although views this year were represented from farther afield, with responses received from over 70 countries – a 30% greater reach than last year’s survey.
The participants represented a cross-section of the industry whose job roles were as follows:
- Business Management – 22%
- Developer / Analyst – 40%
- Project Management – 17%
- Operations – 13%
- Other (vendor, journalist, consultant, etc) – 8%
Technology Trends – or Business Requirements?
How closely does the average IT shop actually follow emerging technological trends and the advice of leading industry analysts and the media in planning their budgets and projects? When Gartner says they predict large organizations will establish "cloudsourcing" teams or that future applications will be integrated with social technologies or that organizations will need to provide applications to interact with customers via mobile devices, does this impact your planning?
If you follow the industry analysts, in particular Gartner, you will be accustomed to seeing predictions about the future of Information Technology — software, applications and infrastructure — often numerically identified Letterman-style as a "Top Ten" list. I recently referenced Gartner's Top Strategic Technology list for 2011 in my blog post "Reaching for the Sky - Cloud Computing." Afterwards, I pulled the lists for the past three years to see how these trends have changed or evolved. Continue reading “Technology Trends – or Business Requirements?” »
Can SharePoint and IBM i coexist? The Magic 8-Ball says, “YES!”
Microsoft SharePoint has grown exponentially since its release in 2003. Did you know it took SharePoint only five years to surpass the $1 billion mark in annual sales? I believe SharePoint was gobbled up quickly by so many companies because it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to build a business case with a compelling return on investment.
That said, I find it odd that in the SMB market – a market that cherishes return on investment (and thus our love affair with the IBM i) – we find little mention of IBM i organizations embracing SharePoint. Microsoft has hit a proverbial homerun with SharePoint, yet it appears few of us on IBM i take advantage of it. If the Magic 8-Ball says SharePoint and IBM i can coexist, then what gives?
I think we need to allow the IBM i community to ask the Magic 8-Ball a few more follow-up questions to bring more clarity to this topic.
Continue reading “Can SharePoint and IBM i coexist? The Magic 8-Ball says, “YES!”” »
Top Ten Reasons Application Modernization Projects Fail
Guest Blogger: Paul Conte, President PCES, is a leading Application Development Strategist.
Are we done yet? With “modernizing” our applications, that is?
It seems so long ago that someone came up with the clever concept of application “modernization” as a response to how outdated AS/400 applications looked by comparison with graphical Windows applications.
But now, even after years of screen-scraping, “refacing” and crash courses in Java, there still exists an unfathomable mountain of monolithic RPG applications that – dolled up or not – simply don’t serve modern business needs.
Why have so many attempts at “modernization” failed to deliver? Herewith are my own “top ten” reasons, listed somewhat in the order I’ve seen them occur in many IBM i organizations:
Continue reading “Top Ten Reasons Application Modernization Projects Fail” »
Why Using an Application Framework like the VLF should be a No Brainer
Frameworks are everywhere. They are available for almost every part of software development and frameworks are not exclusive to the IT industry. Medicine, banking and insurance all have risk assessment frameworks. Education uses learning frameworks, companies are measured by quality frameworks and the USA Department of Defense has a framework for enterprise architecture.
Why are frameworks popular? Where do they apply in software development? How can frameworks help to reduce cost and boost productivity? Before addressing these questions, we need to understand what we mean by framework.
Continue reading “Why Using an Application Framework like the VLF should be a No Brainer” »