Market insight for the RPG Development Community

Welcome to another edition of Talsco Weekly

News: IBM, Red Hat and Cloud. Application Services Market growth
Blockchain: Tracking Food Supply and Reducing payment disputes.
Career: How watching baseball might help your career.
Cloud: What is Cloud IaaS?
Development: How Node.js might help your legacy RPG Development department.
ERP: IBM i ERP Subscription Model for Distributors.
Hiring: A guide to hiring interns. It offers RPG Development Managers another option.
Modernization: Business Systems Specialists on the rise. The real issue with technical debt.
Security: The issue with GDPR. Android malware. And what would happen without the internet?

News

IBM Leveraging Red Hat For Hybrid Multi-Cloud Strategy "While it's easy to think that moving software to the cloud is old news, the reality in most businesses these days is very different. Only a tiny fraction of the applications that companies rely on to run their day-to-day operations operate in the cloud or have even been modernized to a cloud-native format." This is most definitely the case in the IBM i market. The reality is, the hybrid approach to the cloud in many cases makes the most sense. Application Modernization Services Market 2019 Business Analysis, Review, Updates and Forecast 2024 If you are a full-stack IBM i developer and interested in helping in IBM i modernization you are in good shape because "according to this study, over the next five years the Application Modernization Services market will register a 16.3% CAGR in terms of revenue, the global market size will reach US$ 25600 million by 2024, from US$ 10400 million in 2019. Application modernization is the refactoring, re-purposing or consolidation of legacy software programming to align it more closely with current business needs."

AI

IBM Systems: Launchpad to Power9 Power9 is still turning heads. By "using a system built by a single vendor from the ground up has its benefits. For example, both the hardware and software have been optimized to essentially function as a single entity, removing the complexity involved in multivendor scenarios." This is what makes the IBM i platform so powerful and it really does give organizations a competitive advantage provided they know its capabilities.

Blockchain

Carrefour says blockchain tracking boosting sales of some products Blockchain is proving to disrupt change in various markets. "Carrefour has worked on the blockchain system together with IBM, which is collaborating with a number of retailers, logistics firms and growers on systems to track and secure their global supply chains." Travelport, IBM collaborate on Blockchain to reduce payment disputes Here is another example of where blockchain can be used. "Travelport, a business and consumer travel services provider, announced it is using IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric to guarantee commissions paid to travel agencies."

Career

Watching a baseball game taught me more about leadership presence than any self-help book Watching baseball can teach you a lot about not only leadership but also your career. Think about leaders in your organization, do they have some of the same characteristics as Mike Trout?

Cloud

Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service - Gartner Reprint "Cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is a type of cloud computing service; it parallels the infrastructure and data center initiatives of IT. In the context of this Magic Quadrant, cloud IaaS is defined as a standardized, highly automated offering, where compute resources, complemented by storage and networking capabilities, are owned by a service provider and offered to the customer on demand."

Development

Boutique Footwear Company Finds A Great Fit With Node.js Does this sound familiar?

Those RPG apps have served the company quite well over decades of production use. But as the Internet changed user expectation and opened new opportunities in recent years, it became evident that the old RPG code was not keeping up with emerging business requirements, especially as it relates to user and application interfaces.

If it does, and your company realizes that "legacy" is not a dirty word, the follow Kamik's Three-Part Modernization plan utilizing several incredibly powerful tools found in the IBM i marketplace, ARCAD, Profound Logic, and Node.js. The Evolution and Future of Cloud IDE "Cloud IDE market is anticipated to experience high demand during the forecast period due to the increased cloud migration of enterprises. Also, demand for cloud management programs is expected to rise with the increasing customization requirements of enterprises. The new HTML 5 platform and its ability to enable browser-based development of applications is the major driver of the cloud IDE market. HTML 5 includes multiple development platforms for the development of mobile applications for Android and IOS devices."

ERP

Software Concepts Inc. Offers Affordable Subscription Model for Small Distributors Here is a press release for an affordable IBM i Software Solution. “The function-rich DS90 iSeries Software is a budget-friendly ERP solution developed to meet the needs of growing businesses. An intuitive, easy to use interface enables quick ramp-up. The ability to mask functionality until needed makes the DS90 iSeries Distribution Software easy to learn and highly scalable.”

Hiring

Managers guide for helping interns transition to employees The smart IBM i shops are the ones that think outside the box. One of the ways they do this is by using interns. The hard part is knowing how to make the best use of an internship program. This article offers some high-level advice on using interns. Combine this with offering to train your interns in RPG development through RPG Training through imPower Technologies or COMMON and you will be on the right path.

Modernization

Business systems - the new IT specialists for the digital enterprise I find the below excerpt from the article interesting.

There's an unseen revolution happening in how organizations buy, run and maintain application software. A new breed of IT specialists is growing whose role is to manage applications for the business. This is not shadow IT — they typically still report into the IT function. But they're embedded in the business functions, and tasked with helping them adapt technology to achieve their goals.

It's interesting because the role of "Business Systems Analyst" has been in IBM i shops for a very long time. " Are companies in technical debt? IT managers are worried. Technical debt is a huge issue. What is it?

It’s a bit like the software development equivalent of a payday loan. When an organization chooses an easy and less optimal software solution, it incurs what has become known as technical debt — its value equates to the cost of any additional re-work required to software to bring it up to scratch.

And the scary thing ~~problem~~ is, that most companies don't have a plan in place to deal with it.

Security

GDPR is an identity thief's dream ticket to Europeans' data The unintended consequences of GDPR. "It was supposed to be a major step forward in data safety, but sloppy implementation and a little social engineering can make it a haven for identity thieves." Google flags preinstalled malware as hidden threat on millions of Android phones For those of you who have Andriod phones, "a security researcher on Google’s Project Zero and a former tech lead on the Android Security team, flagged preinstalled malware on millions of new Android smartphones as a hidden threat that requires more attention." What would happen if the whole internet shut down An interesting read on what some experts think would happen if the internet shut down.

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